‘Demure and mindful’ - oh great.

Oh shame, I was hoping you’d come back to me on my question as to how somebody would know they were living as a woman if there isn’t a list of prescribed characteristics. Because it all seems a terrible muddle at the moment.

If I were to be living as a man, how would I know?

And if I were to feel like I was really a man, what would that feel like? Because, you see, I’ve never been a man, so I don’t feel I would know what it feels like to be one. What would tell me that I do feel like I am one? How would I know if I did?

No thanks.

I have actually done the research about who is and isn’t female, and therefore who is and isn’t a woman. I find that knowing that the established science defines a female person as a human having a sexed body that has been formed around the production of large gametes. Whether that body ever produces those large gametes doesn’t cause me any stress at all. I don’t need to ‘sleep’ on this. It is an abiding definition that has not changed since the start of human life.

I also feel just as comfortable with the rejection of other’s philosophical beliefs that the words ‘woman’ and ‘girl’ has been destabilised to include those who are male people who have a body formed around the production of small gametes, whether the body produce those small gametes or not.

So, I don’t feel the need to sleep on it at all.

Bloody hell, posts in this section get deleted quickly! I hope the moderators are getting paid well, they're clearly having a busy old time of it.

crikey, gone but still reporting I see! paracetamol for the headache Elle.

nah, they've got nothing in common.

It's the total lack of empathy for women in other countries that I find particularly ugly. It's hard to believe that someone is seriously posting these comments. But I guess that's the internet for you. A sad window into the very unpleasant and uncaring world of some.

what do all the people who have suffered from these things have in common @ElleWoods15 ?

• Symphysiotomy (google it, it will make you fucking furious)
• magdelene laundries
• menstruation huts
• the husband stitch
• vaginal mesh scandal
• chibok kidnapping

actually they're just random people aren't they? there's no pattern, what was I thinking?

Yes, but I definitely think you're onto something. Maybe all those people should get together, make a movement to campaign against these things?

In order to identify as something, you need to have a clear picture of what that thing is.

To say “anyone is a woman who identifies as a woman” reduces the word “woman” to just letters on a page. It divorces the word from any material real thing.

You can only imagine what it is to identify as a “woman” because you already know what a woman is, as defined by the class of adult human females that have been referred to by this word for hundreds of years.

If you remove “woman” from meaning a real physical thing, there is nothing to identify as.

Thanks for your input, Elle!

what do all the people who have suffered from these things have in common @ElleWoods15 ?

• Symphysiotomy (google it, it will make you fucking furious)
• magdelene laundries
• menstruation huts
• the husband stitch
• vaginal mesh scandal
• chibok kidnapping

actually they're just random people aren't they? there's no pattern, what was I thinking?

Jeeez, my mental health is worth more than trying to reason with you lot: I’m off to bed! I reckon it wouldn’t be a bad idea for lots of you to log off and have a sleep on it!

Thing is, people can be supportive of trans people without simply repeating a mantra such as ‘transwomen are women’.

That is your personal opinion on how people can support trans people. However, we also know that there are many male people
with transgender identifies that respect female people and they understand that they are not women. You seem to be only supporting one group of people with transgender identities.

Also, this is a feminist board and we support female trans people needs as those needs are shared because of a female sexed body.

Your accusations of people being anti-trans is false. It is based only on your personal understanding of what others believe. Which seems to be based on falsity.

Sneering comments and slurs are also an ugly trait.

Could you please answer my questions? I've been perfectly polite.

you really, really have not explained what you think a woman is. try explaining it without using the word 'woman'

you do seem grumpy

It’s not offensive at all. Trans women “identify” as women, that’s not the same as being women.

Then are not female. They have bodies designed around the production of sperm. It is utterly biologically ignorant to pretend this is not a thing.

If they feel better dressing in “women’s” clothes and growing their hair long and wearing make up, fine by me. But at the point they tell me they are actually women, I find it extremely offensive, arrogant and ignorant, and totally lacking insight.

They know nothing of growing up as a girl and woman. They have not experienced the workplace discrimination, and how it feels to be the smaller and weaker sex out in the world. They are ignorant of women’s reality, but expect that I will go along with their pronouncement that they are also a woman. Just like me. Except nothing like me.

What can they possibly know about being a woman except what they imagine it to be?

If questions cannot be answered with an answer that is clear, coherent and non-circular, surely that makes someone wonder why?

You'd think. "What's a woman?" "Someone who identifies as a woman, obvs"

Using circular definitions make the definition a nonsense.

If your view is just a belief, a tenet of faith like religion just say so.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326738

Trying to convince themselves of the truth of an absurd worldview that they know doesn't make any sense by repeating meaningless thought terminating cliches is one way of dealing with it.

There have been plenty of encouragement to engage, we are asking questions and discussing how identities that don’t reflect material reality don’t change that material reality.

If questions cannot be answered with an answer that is clear, coherent and non-circular, surely that makes someone wonder why? But I guess that by now, most of us are poster questions for readers to consider to help coalesce their own thoughts about this.

Sorry @wincarwoo, I was asking that of the people who’ve been bleating on about it but don’t appear to understand what it actually is.

’The pain of cognitive dissonance’ is a phrase trotted out repeatedly around here by certain people who refuse to accept anyone can be supportive of trans people.