Feeling really low after being honest

@Minglingpringle. Like Eresh’s question about the “particular”, above… You’re generalising a lot: upset, vulnerability, respect, kindness. These are all true, to a greater or lesser degree, of both sides. As such, lots of people have offered more specifics than this to justify why they favour the GC perspective. I tried to weigh up both in my post - why we need our def of “women” more than they do. Can you counter with specifics that do the same?

A reminder.
Be wildernesses Rule of Misogyny:

1. Women are responsible for what men do.
2. Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3. Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.
4. Women’s opinions are violence against men, thus male violence against women is justified.
5. Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.
6. Women who go around being female AT men by menstruating and breastfeeding babies deserve punishment.
7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.
8. Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.
9. Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.
10. The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

I refer to point 8. Women are women. Men do not get to call themselves women.

There's no such thing as cis women. Just sexism and biological women who have to be told by men they must include males because men decided they were woman.

Nope.

Men are never women. By definition all transwomen are men else what are they trans from? And no woman can be a transwoman.

Because biology.

I refer to points 2 and 3...

Just because something is new doesn’t make it wrong. A lot of terrible things happened in the past that need changing.

What makes this particular thing right?

Wow.

We have a live one who thinks we are all stupid and never have thought about any of this before and is here to lecture us in the guise of saying they just happened to stray here and have some comments to tell us. Yawn.

Trying to start a fight about how the word cis is fine, isn't a good start.

I think we possibly need to have the bucket of hake at the ready for the performance.

Also yes, anger’s obviously totally legit - vital, & desperately needed, even. I read that statement by whichever police force it is earlier today, saying their policy was to describe a male sex offender as “female” (not even just “woman”, but “female”) on his say-so, in the context of appealing for witnesses & felt sick with anger, & fear. I think that’s an entirely rational response too! Sorry for bold, which now makes me look angry 😁 but want to highlight these points.

Letting a criminal choose how to be described in a way that makes apprehending him less likely, potentially puts the public at greater risk, & corrupts the data we use to permit women to play a full & active role in society (men’s relative capacity for committing violent offences) is utterly Orwellian.

“..contrasting trans women with other women”: what other women? There are only women - no “other” women. Trans women are men. If they were women, they’d be…women.

I’m not sure where you see anger in my post at least. Passion, yes, but underpinned by reasoned argument.

I really would be interested to hear a response to those arguments, which I’d hoped would show that I believe this goes far beyond “the wrong use of language”. (Equally, language is a personal interest of mine, & don’t want to de-rail.) 🙂

Fuck off with your 'both sides' condescending bullshit. Transwomen are not 'other women ', they're men. The word woman is taken.

If you're not angry, you haven't been paying attention.

Thanks

Op there will be people in the room who feel the same but unable to speak up.

The only person I ever heard using it in a non tongue in cheek way was a male as described above.

This cis word is obviously a massive trigger.

I used it thoughtlessly as it seemed to fit the context, where I was contrasting trans women with other women.

Nobody on here seems to think it’s a word the average person would know but it’s very well known. If I know it, it must be.

I don’t think it helps the debate to get so angry about the wrong use of language, and infer from that that I am an enemy.

You guys are very unhappy but there are a load of people on the other side also very unhappy. I am trying to respect everybody.

There are so many resources which might be useful for you, I hardly know where to start.

This might be helpful, for understanding the most marginalised and vulnerable™ trope: https://thecritic.co.uk/neither-marginalised-abused-nor-vulnerable/

This might be helpful, as a flavour of the relative levels of attack: https://terfisaslur.com/

(Edited for typo)

🤣

It might be a “famous” word but it’s also very offensive. There’s no such person as a “cis” woman.

Im in my 50’s and I can honestly say I’d never seen the word used until I read these boards. And it’s still the only place other than Twitter I’ve ever seen it used.

It’s really not a common word amongst the GBP

I’m not taking anything as read. I’m trying to balance everybody’s competing interests.

Just because something is new doesn’t make it wrong. A lot of terrible things happened in the past that need changing.

I haven’t complained about you objecting to it. I think we’ll never thrash out a solution if people don’t talk about it.

I'd really appreciate if you could answer my question. Your "how fascinating" comment was merely the jumping off point for mine.

See Billy Bragg for a shining example of this.

But you use cis.

Right there is a freedom women have lost: to be free to define ourselves as a distinct political demographic with common needs due to our biology; to be free to define ourselves the way we see ourselves - not limited by, but proudly respecting the truth of, our own biology. Cis only exists relative to trans, & positions women relative to trans. It forces us into a new category.

This is one hell of a freedom for women to have lost. The empathy extended to trans people’s desire to self-identify implicitly acknowledges this - it’s respected as deep-seated & valid… while denying women the same freedoms of self-perception & language.

But whereas trans people still exist as a distinct demographic, with a vocabulary to draw on to describe themselves & advocate for their needs, women-as-were no longer have this.

And, what’s more, this loss of women-as-we’re’ freedom to define themselves is contributing to tangible mental & physical harm on a grand scale. Males in women’s prisons, sports & shortlists; corrupted data in already-neglected areas; privacy in hospitals; increased vulnerability to injury (sport) & attack (the loss of single sex spaces).

Anyone prepared to use “cis” has made a choice: that a trans person’s freedom to self-define is more important than many biological women’s equivalent freedom.

And anyone who’s put enough thought in (regrettably, I think that’s still proportionately few people!) has made that choice knowing its devastating impact on women’s concrete & legal freedoms, & judging this as less significant than trans people’s (substantial in some cases, yes) emotional discomfort.

Edited to say, I’m genuinely curious how you’d reconcile using “cis” with your views on freedom in the light of the above. Are these new perspectives on this word? Or would you say they’re over-exaggerated? (I’d personally say this is hard to argue, once you start reading about what’s happening). Would you reconsider your usage? And, if not, could you argue for retaining it, with reference to the arguments above? A compromise on one or other group’s freedoms is needed either way: I defend my choice above, and would be interested to hear this countered.

I think you attributed some subtext to it that wasn’t there.

I saw it signing autographs at the back entrance to the Roxy last Friday night! So z list famous!

@Notfeelingitwasworthit I just want to join the choir of posters saying thank you for your courage. It really does mean so much that there are women like you brave enough to speak the truth.

I'd really appreciate your answer to the question I posed, @Minglingpringle

I find it fascinating how you clearly know males and females aren't the same yet take it as read that some males should be treated as women. On what basis?

What gave you the impression that an ideology which has been mainstream for about 5 minutes is something most people adhere to, to the point of you thinking we are in some way weird or unusual for objecting to it?

How can a word be “famous”?

The idea of "cis" being a "famous word" is amusing. Go out on the street and do a vox pop. Ask a cross section of the general public whether they know what it means.