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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Trans sibling in law

989 replies

Primrose86 · 12/06/2025 18:40

DH's sibling has just come out as a man. She is 26 and autistic, lives at home with mum, spends life on the Internet, got kicked out of school at 16 etc etc She has plans to go overseas and transition in germany where apparently you can get surgeries on the public health system while living with her grandpa. Her mum is fully supportive of this.

How should I react to all this. Should I start referring to him as my brother in law? What usually happens after people come out. I assume they progress to hormones and surgery but honestly based on what I read, Germany is quite resistant to health tourists who never paid in even if they are citizens. Are people really happy identifying as another gender when they wouldn't look like the other gender?

OP posts:
SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 17:13

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 17/06/2025 16:58

Bloody hell, you really don't get it, do you?

Trans women are not a category of women; they are a category of men. This is because "women" means "female people" and "men" means "male people", and trans women are male. Male people can never be a category of female people because male is the opposite of female.

The only way you can make trans women a category of women is by changing the definition of the word "women" so that it means something other than "female people" and can therefore include male people.

If you do that, we no longer have a word for female people, and you are forcing women into a completely imaginary category of people who have nothing in common beyond the fact that they describe themselves as a woman. The only purpose of this category is to enable male people to be included in things which are supposed to be for female people.

How does this benefit women?

Edited

I’m not sure I need to benefit from everything, is pretty much the top and bottom of my response.

The rest, whilst I can see was you re-explaining because you don’t think I get your point, is just repeating what’s already been said.

DuesToTheDirt · 17/06/2025 17:13

RareGoalsVerge · 16/06/2025 22:53

Defining womanhood as biological is the absolute diametric opposite of "reducing us to our biology". If biology is the unifying factor that women share, that liberates us for ever other possible facet of our lives to be anything at all, without constraint. There is no feeling or preference or personality trait or set of priorities of any kind that is intrinsic to "woman". We are that subcategory of human which has female biology. Everything else about us can be whatever we choose.

Edited

I love this.

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 17:12

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 17:06

Although they don't leave a bruise, if you hit someone with them. A random fact from my degree (which has no use in this discussion, being actual science....).

I can see an experiment for shits and giggles in here....

Did it. Works.

The cost of fruit didn't factor quite so much in my decisions as "fun" did when I was a student. My friends and I all enjoyed this experiment.

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 17:12

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 17:05

I didn’t start it, someone else did last night.

Apples would probably be a better analogy for men, because one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole the whole bunch. There are good apples, and I (again, personally) don’t blame all of them for the actions of others.

All the good apples, mean we shouldn't protect women from male voyeurs or abusers? We should just let them crack on because otherwise we wouldn't be fair to the men?

How is this fair to women? Are they not worthy of protection from male violence against women? How many women are acceptable as collateral damage so that its fair to men?

We should just let males into women's shelters because they are good eggs and the women should just suck it up? And women should just deal with men in their rape crisis counselling session because they are wearing a frock even if there highly intimate issues to be discussed?

Flipping heck. When do women asking for issues that affect them deeply matter? Do they ever matter? Are they just second class support humans to men, and thats how we know which sex we are???

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/06/2025 17:11

Why does the fact that most women here don’t believe in innate gender identity bother you so much@SleeplessInWherever?

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 17:11

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 17:05

I didn’t start it, someone else did last night.

Apples would probably be a better analogy for men, because one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole the whole bunch. There are good apples, and I (again, personally) don’t blame all of them for the actions of others.

One bad apple can in fact make a whole bushel of apples bad.

I don't believe all men are bad. I don't believe all trans women want to be women to perv on biological women in changing rooms.

But tell me. How can we know which men or trans women are bad? Do we just have to wait til they've harmed us? Or should we just ask that out rights are respected? Much like men and trans people the world over want theirs to be respected.

Why do women's rights have to be taken away to allow trans rights? Why can't we all have rights that fit the purpose?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/06/2025 17:10

I don’t care. I’m just not going to pretend that I consider a mans woman identity meaningful in any way.

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 17:09

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 16:37

Only If the law can define sex.

Which it can, and does, because everyone can define sex.

I just don’t claim to know, or even concern myself with, everyone’s gender, why they have it, or what it means to them.

If you have sex specific spaces, which you do, why would you even care what someone’s gender identity is.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/06/2025 17:08

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/06/2025 00:16

If it was “just someone’s life” and they stayed out of the spaces that aren’t meant for them, and we weren’t required to validate their personal self image, no one would have a problem.

Again.

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 17:06

Although they don't leave a bruise, if you hit someone with them. A random fact from my degree (which has no use in this discussion, being actual science....).

I can see an experiment for shits and giggles in here....

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 17:05

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 16:33

But if you're an apple that a banana has previously bruised (if we're carrying on this ridiculous analogy you started), you don't want bananas, whether they believe they're now apples or not, in places you as a biological apple are supposed to feel safe.

That's the point.

I didn’t start it, someone else did last night.

Apples would probably be a better analogy for men, because one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole the whole bunch. There are good apples, and I (again, personally) don’t blame all of them for the actions of others.

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 17:04

spannasaurus · 17/06/2025 16:01

It can also be taken away, but if/when it is, I’ll react then rather than in advance.

Its much harder to get back rights that have been taken away than it is to retain the rights you already have.

And you will only be able to react if a legal framework has been set up, in advance, that protects your rights.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/06/2025 17:04

drspouse · 17/06/2025 16:20

You still haven't told us what all women have in common, though.

We have done that.

If you want there to be a word "woman" for a class of people that doesn't include "men", you have to define that word so it includes all women, and doesn't include any men.

We just want to know how YOU define it, since you're so set on us not telling you how to define it, you have to have an alternative definition.

If your definition "is only true for you" then it isn't a definition of woman. It's a definition of Mary Brown from Hemel Hempstead which is all fine and lovely but if there is no class of woman, there cannot be sexism, so we cannot fight sexism.

Precisely.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 17/06/2025 16:58

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:24

Again, personally, I refer to trans women as just that, a category of woman.

That doesn’t change you being a woman, in whatever that means for you.

I also used banana apple, in the analogy we’re labouring, for the same reason.

The difference between trans woman and woman, IMO, is biology. Which I don’t dispute anyone having.

Bloody hell, you really don't get it, do you?

Trans women are not a category of women; they are a category of men. This is because "women" means "female people" and "men" means "male people", and trans women are male. Male people can never be a category of female people because male is the opposite of female.

The only way you can make trans women a category of women is by changing the definition of the word "women" so that it means something other than "female people" and can therefore include male people.

If you do that, we no longer have a word for female people, and you are forcing women into a completely imaginary category of people who have nothing in common beyond the fact that they describe themselves as a woman. The only purpose of this category is to enable male people to be included in things which are supposed to be for female people.

How does this benefit women?

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 16:56

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 16:39

A squashed banana is still a banana not an apple.

Also apples don't tend to be vulnerable from violence from bananas. Nor are they are risk of getting pregnant.

Not last time I checked unless theres a pointless philosophical argument that has nothing to do with human adult females about bananas and apples.

Hey, I didn't choose the analogy, I've just tried to use it to help make sense of a PPs claims that TW are a category of woman (banana apples are a kind of apple, she says).

I'm pretty sure though, if you hit an apple hard enough with a banana, it would leave a mark. I'd try it, but fruit is too expensive and DD eats it like I have unlimited money.

Maybe oranges would be better. Although they don't leave a bruise, if you hit someone with them. A random fact from my degree (which has no use in this discussion, being actual science....).

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 16:44

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 16:37

Only If the law can define sex.

If the law can't see sex, then the law can not take action against sexism.

Equally if the law can't see sex, then the law can not take action against.... drumroll... transphobia.

The law MUST see sex in both cases to identify women from men and to identify transpeople from non transpeople.

Otherwise I can just claim your comments on this thread against me are transphobic because I'm trans. You couldn't argue that I wasn't trans.

Things have to have definitions and meanings in law not legally illiterate philosophical concepts without defined boundaries.

A woman is a woman is a woman.
And thats based on sex. This is biologically provable, its written in law and it has broad public consensus and understanding.

Its just people trying to sound clever or virtue signal to their tribe, that say anything remotely difficult.

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 16:41

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 16:39

A squashed banana is still a banana not an apple.

Also apples don't tend to be vulnerable from violence from bananas. Nor are they are risk of getting pregnant.

Not last time I checked unless theres a pointless philosophical argument that has nothing to do with human adult females about bananas and apples.

They are vulnerable to over ripening if placed next to a banana - but perhaps you can take an analogy too far!

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 16:40

And if you face discrimination based on gendered expectations, the last thing the perpetrator is worried about is your feelings about your identity. They are making a judgement based on their own beliefs/socialisation.

RedToothBrush · 17/06/2025 16:39

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 16:33

But if you're an apple that a banana has previously bruised (if we're carrying on this ridiculous analogy you started), you don't want bananas, whether they believe they're now apples or not, in places you as a biological apple are supposed to feel safe.

That's the point.

A squashed banana is still a banana not an apple.

Also apples don't tend to be vulnerable from violence from bananas. Nor are they are risk of getting pregnant.

Not last time I checked unless theres a pointless philosophical argument that has nothing to do with human adult females about bananas and apples.

Merrymouse · 17/06/2025 16:37

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:26

I have answered how I define woman, and female, and why I see them as different.

Sexism is based on sex, female, which we all share and isn’t something I’ve ever attempted to deny having.

So we can still fight being discriminated against on the basis of sex, because that’s not the same as gender.

Only If the law can define sex.

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 17/06/2025 16:33

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:16

Fair enough, thanks for pointing it out.

Someone being a banana apple doesn't change if I’m an apple though, does it.

They’re not changing my fruit status, or telling me I have to be something else.

I’d like to think that my apple skin is a bit thicker than being affected by that anyway.

But if you're an apple that a banana has previously bruised (if we're carrying on this ridiculous analogy you started), you don't want bananas, whether they believe they're now apples or not, in places you as a biological apple are supposed to feel safe.

That's the point.

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:29

marshmallowpuff · 17/06/2025 16:19

If it’s an internalisation of social and cultural structure, and we are all deeply affected by how society genders us, then how can a man possibly have a gender identity of “woman”, if he’s never been subject to being gendered as such? He presumably also has an inescapable gender identity, formed over years of life, as a man. If gender identity is real, how is it possible for him to set aside the one he already has (which is also real), and instantly acquire another that he hasn’t been socialised into?

In your model, there’s actually less room for individuals to exist outside the gendered structures of the social world, no?

I don’t know if it’s instantly acquired and set aside, or developed in the same way that everyone else’s is.

Whether that’s because of their own experiences, a disconnect in some way between their biology and identity, or because they recognise the socialisation of females and actually identify with those more than the male ones, I have no way of telling you because I’ve never claimed to be trans.

I can’t associate, certainly not fully, with an experience I’ve never lived.

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:26

drspouse · 17/06/2025 16:20

You still haven't told us what all women have in common, though.

We have done that.

If you want there to be a word "woman" for a class of people that doesn't include "men", you have to define that word so it includes all women, and doesn't include any men.

We just want to know how YOU define it, since you're so set on us not telling you how to define it, you have to have an alternative definition.

If your definition "is only true for you" then it isn't a definition of woman. It's a definition of Mary Brown from Hemel Hempstead which is all fine and lovely but if there is no class of woman, there cannot be sexism, so we cannot fight sexism.

I have answered how I define woman, and female, and why I see them as different.

Sexism is based on sex, female, which we all share and isn’t something I’ve ever attempted to deny having.

So we can still fight being discriminated against on the basis of sex, because that’s not the same as gender.

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 16:24

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 17/06/2025 16:17

If it changes what an apple is, you no longer have a word to describe what you are.

Again, personally, I refer to trans women as just that, a category of woman.

That doesn’t change you being a woman, in whatever that means for you.

I also used banana apple, in the analogy we’re labouring, for the same reason.

The difference between trans woman and woman, IMO, is biology. Which I don’t dispute anyone having.

drspouse · 17/06/2025 16:20

SleeplessInWherever · 17/06/2025 15:13

Don’t tell me who I am, and why, please.

You still haven't told us what all women have in common, though.

We have done that.

If you want there to be a word "woman" for a class of people that doesn't include "men", you have to define that word so it includes all women, and doesn't include any men.

We just want to know how YOU define it, since you're so set on us not telling you how to define it, you have to have an alternative definition.

If your definition "is only true for you" then it isn't a definition of woman. It's a definition of Mary Brown from Hemel Hempstead which is all fine and lovely but if there is no class of woman, there cannot be sexism, so we cannot fight sexism.