It just doesn't make sense!!

Drag isn't acceptable to many women but like everything we are shamed in speaking up to ask not to be the subject of misogynistic entertainment.

@adesias some points

• women are not men without something between their legs. Your chromosomes are in every fibre of your being. Every cell of mine is female, xx. Transwomen are not women as you seem to assume.

• "A man intent on hurting a woman or a girl does not first pretends to be a woman or a girl to gain their confidence." - this has happened so many times now, you really should do your research before spouting such mistruths. See the Facebook group "This never happens" for a record.

I also struggle to understand this @exnewwifeproblems

The only answer which I can come up with is that sex trumps all and men feel solidarity with each other enough for those with paler skin tones to understand that blackface is wrong. Sexism however is still basically acceptable because enough men from all backgrounds, skin tones, ethnicities, all beliefs and none know somewhere deep inside that women must be kept in their place by constant humiliation, belittling, mocking and now it seems denial of the sexed realities of womanhood.

@adesias sorry - in your scenario women don’t know that there is a man with gender dysphoria/a cross dresser/with autogynaphelia (all coming within the trans umbrella) unless he reveals himself 😂😂😂 so you think until Lia Thomas revealed himself in the change rooms everyone genuinely thought he was a woman??

this is not like thinking that gay men are paedophiles - it’s like thinking that men commit 97% of sexual assaults and no one can tell who that man will be so all men are excluded from some places to protect women.

and in terms of paedophile analagoies - well there is quite the history of male paedophiles pretending to be childrens entertainers wouldn’t you agree? So robust safeguarding should be applied wouldn’t you agree?

Sorry to jump on this thread but I'm hoping someone can help me. I don't usually post in feminism.

Can someone please explain to me. Because I (genuinely) don't get it (I'm autistic for relevance).

Blackface isn't acceptable because it's over exaggerating features and expressions for comedic and/or parody effect.

So why is drag acceptable? It's doing the same thing?

And both sex and race are protected characteristics in the Equality Act?

Sorry if you don't think I'm right to ask here and if not can you point me to where I should post. Thanks

I feel like I've stumbled back to 2018 by accident. Stop using people with a DSD in your flimsy arguments.

For a long time the dominant assumption that gay men were child molesters in waiting has polluted the debate. That false assumption is nowadays no longer the dominant thought, but it still rears its ugly head on many occasions.
The trans women are now facing a similarly false and vilifying assumption that most of them are cis men who choose to go in disguise in order to gain stealth access to young girls. A rapist usually counts on intimidation and strength and wouldn't recourse to cross dressing (all the way from home, through the city, with high heels impeding his running away from the crime scene), it is a ridiculous scenario. A man intent on hurting a woman or a girl does not first pretends to be a woman or a girl to gain their confidence.
If public toilets offer individual cubicles with total privacy (i.e. lockable doors, unlike America's public lavatories), then it shouldn't be an issue to other women whether THAT ONE has more bits than them between her legs.
The likelihood of a trans woman being abused if she were to use the gents is far higher than the likelihood of her suddenly deciding to out herself as "Assigned Male At Birth" and create a scene when using the ladies. A trans lady also wants to pee in peace.

I think these are all really reasonable and sensible points. If every one was this calm and logical it would make a big difference (and I'm including the tiny vocal minority of trans people that don't speak for the vast majority who just want to live their lives)

Sure some people are intersex - very few, as you say.

Gender - however many genders there may deemed to be - is a construct, just a set of ideas. So it’s easy to say there are five or fifteen or fifty thousand. Of course there are or could be. Gender is just an idea.

Biological sex is real and it really matters for many reasons.

For eg:

Biological women need safe spaces.

Female rape victims need female only support groups.

Male bodied people in women’s sports is grossly unfair.

Male bodied trans women should not be in women’s prisons.

Genders can be spun for eons but women need to fight for sex based rights. Now as much as ever despite supposed progress.

Trans activism can be highly misogynistic.

I read a quote somewhere earlier, a trans activist was saying that women and girls had no right to demand toilets for themselves only, that ‘little girls are also kinky’ and women shouldn’t harp on about ‘the purity of victims’. Really repellent stuff. Someone called alok vaid-menon.

That was to MeaninglessGlass

Clearly not, to both points

nhm.org/stories/beyond-gender-indigenous-perspectives-mapuche

Literally two seconds in google gives me hundreds of links. I haven't checked for source or peer review that would take longer:

Janssen, Diederik F. (April 21, 2020). "Transgenderism Before Gender: Nosology from the Sixteenth Through Mid-Twentieth Century". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 49 (5): 1415–1425. doii:10.1007/s10508-020-01715-ww**. ISSNN* 0004-00022. PMIDD 323190333. S2CIDD 2160739266*.

Mesch, Rachel (May 12, 2020). Before trans : three gender stories from nineteenth-century France. Stanford, California. ISBNN* 978-1-5036-1235-88. OCLCC 11199783422*.

Janssen, Diederik F. (April 21, 2020). "Transgenderism Before Gender: Nosology from the Sixteenth Through Mid-Twentieth Century". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 49 (5): 1415–1425. doii:10.1007/s10508-020-01715-ww**. ISSNN* 0004-00022. PMIDD 323190333. S2CIDD 2160739266*.

Wilfong, T.G. (2007). "Gender and Sexuality". In Wilkinson, Toby (ed.). The Egyptian world. London: Routledge. p. 211. ISBNN* 978-1-136-75377-00. OCLCC 6470837466*.

Many societies, across all human history and in present times, have acknowledged that there are several genders, and that they are not reduced to the presence or absence of whatever between the thighs.
There are dozens of combinations of X and Y chromosomes, 3.5% of the population is neither a simple XX nor a simple XY. That is a small percentage, but that represents over 200 million people world wide.
Gender is a societal construct and several indigenous amerindian societies recognised 4 or 5 genders.
People who dismiss it all as bullshit should look into themselves as to why they feel so strongly against that fact. "A person I deem to be a man should not have the right to declare himself to be anything else" is a declaration of insecurity, in a way.
What enables me to invalidate someone I don't even know?
Reducing womanhood to the ability to become pregnant is stupid and ignorant.
If you don't know any trans people, then maybe you should refrain from debating the topic.

Trans people have been around for centuries in every culture, it's not a new thing

Prove it.

The 1967 act barely changed a thing for gay men, as they were still discriminated and gay sexual activities were still aggressively policed afterwards; the criminalisation of homosexuality in the UK did not in fact end until 2013. Legislation authorising the sacking of seafarers for homosexual acts on UK merchant ships was repealed only in April 2017.
In fact trans people were victims of more violence than women if they revealed their 'trans-ness'. The actual trend is merely a reflection that it has only become 'safer' to a certain extent to out themselves under the most recent laws. In fact trans people are still subject to a lot of abuse, and more specifically trans women who are abused both by cis women "you're men!" and men "you effing poofters!" and they feel very unsafe and unprotected.
Drag queens still exist and usually are different folks: it's an act, fully assumed as such. Trans women just want to be able to live as women without having to be confronted by strangers who have nothing to do with them. The myth of "men pretending to be women to gain access to women's spaces" is just that: a myth, a made up situation that makes no sense, and does not occur in real life.

Bollocks.

Everyone, across all human history and in present times, has known and knows currently, very well, who is a woman and who is a man.

Are transwomen ever engaged as surrogates to produce a live baby?

I completely agree we are not equal yet, the stats very much evidence that. However I'm not sure why you think what I said is tiresome, yes they are people and I think that's a bit disrespectful to those people who lived it.

"Men have never before claimed so fiercely to be women when they are men, in so many numbers. Where were all the woman-identifying men in the UK when women had no right to vote, women had no right to their own property if married, etc?

Did any trans-identified men in those days ever lose their voting rights because they wore a dress? No, they did not."

Maybe they feel able to be a tad more open about it now then the past? When I was at school no one, and I mean no one, was able to even be out as gay. We would have been ostracised and bullied mercifully (even more than I was).

And yes if they were trans women living as women and no one knew they were trans, they would hardly be likely to out themselves by popping down to the voting booth.

And, honestly - saying , "Trans people have been around for centuries in every culture, it's not a new thing." is tiresome. People have always had their own personalities. Personality really does not need to be shut and locked in a "gender" box.

Yes, people have been around for thousands of years - such as women who won't do what they are told by men. Such women got hanged in the UK, in the past.

Then in the 20th century in the UK, women started getting progressive rights, very hard won.

Still not an even playing field, though. Men are still 98% responsible for sexual violence.

Women are now meant to be "equal to men", but that 98% male sexual violence statistic tells us very forcefully that we are not at all equal.

Men have never before claimed so fiercely to be women when they are men, in so many numbers. Where were all the woman-identifying men in the UK when women had no right to vote, women had no right to their own property if married, etc?

Did any trans-identified men in those days ever lose their voting rights because they wore a dress? No, they did not.

It's not meant to make sense, OP. Actually, there are female drag queens, though for some inexplicable reason they're controversial and not always accepted.

Trans people have been around for centuries in every culture, it's not a new thing.

Why do you need 'rules' to understand other people? There will always be exceptions because we are human. Perhaps this person enjoys performing as a Drag Queen, there are no 'rules' to say trans people aren't allowed to!

Would it be possible for you to link to the article please? (Just for interest)

Yes, LK1972.
Men wore, e.g., colourful and eccentric clothing and makeup in 1970s and 1980s, but did not claim womanhood for doing so.The boys in eyeliner and floaty chiffon were still male, they knew it and we knew it, it was never an issue.

Nowadays, not so.

There appear to be lot of men around who want to wear pretty and colourful clothes. They all think it makes them very special, and some of them think it makes them women.

Does it help?