Help me argue that What it Feels Like For a Girl doesn't prove terfs are wrong

Oh god I need a lie down 🤣

No, it's not really silly. Even - or especially - amongst trans people and their allies, there are quite bitter disagreements about who actually qualifies to be trans. If you Google "define trutrans" you will get a glimpse of at least one of the issues. Opinions range from "you have to have always felt like that, had full surgery and hormones, and got a GRC' to "if I happen to feel like a woman this morning, I'm a woman, till I feel like a man again."

Very true.

Women would be women, whether or not there were any trans people in the world.

And transwomen would not be transwomen if there were no women in the world.

Opinions differ on this even amongst trans activists: "truscum" versus "tucute" perspectives. It's worth asking the question.

it is perfectly clear in law that toilets labelled as single sex (either in words: "ladies", "women", "gents", "men"; or in symbols) are for the sex indicated. In this case, there were also toilets indicated for anyone of either sex. Any decent person, and it is clear that White is no such thing, uses facilities intended for their use. I'm not a lawyer and don't have any opinion on the legality of White's actions, but he should abide by the social contract that has kept me out of the Ladies since I was an old enough boy to let go of my mother's hand and venture into the terrifying world of the Gents, where as a lad I was at least as vulnerable as the rather imposing White.

This sort of comment is just silly and trying to be goady for some reason. I think we all know what trans people are, after all there are hundreds of threads discussing them so what is your point?

Why? It’s like watching films about why the earth is flat or the moon landing was faked. Pointless waste of time.

See how you ignore facts and just plough on saying the same erroneous stuff post after post! The House of Commons has apologised after mistakenly letting a male person (transwoman, RMW) use the female toilets RMW shouldn’t have been in those toilets and they were wrong to allow RMW in - for which they’ve apologised.

What is a transperson? Is there a criteria one must follow to be trans? Or can anyone say they are trans?

Perhaps she could explain to you why she thinks watching that series would convince you - and, crucially, what she thinks it would convince you of?

The difficulties with all these conversations is that the split in opinion comes so early in the discussion. I remember a thread on here long ago about women’s sport. There was at least one poster on the thread arguing for transwomen in women’s sport (less common these days although I’ve seen at least one in recent days which felt a bit retro). They started their post something like ‘so let’s start from accepting that transwomen are women…’ at which the debate is already over because nobody on the GC side is going to accept that.

So it’s possible that her belief is that the series will convince you that Paris Lees, and/or the (presumably) transwoman actor playing her, is a woman; or should be treated as a woman by others; or IS treated as a woman by others, particularly when being fucked for money by men. Does she genuinely think that is what makes someone a woman - being fucked by men? I mean, presumably not. I’m sure she doesn’t think that, and she must know that you don’t think that. But exactly what does she think is going to change your view of being female when you see this, or what changed for her when she saw it?

Lots of males are in some minority group or other. Should a centenarian male be allowed to invade female spaces, and would he be the victim if women told him to get out?

I would stake my salary on her supporting single-sex care and women being allowed to choose the sex (not the gender) of carers/ nursing staff. She's worked in Muslim countries where it would be unthinkable for men to offer any kind of care.

Oh, so there are some circumstances where she thinks it would not be appropriate for a man to self ID into womanhood. That changes everything.

Ask her why.

I think your friends career depends on her seeing men who want to women as vulnerable and she's blind to men like RMW.

She'll probably come around eventually, and likely deny she said women can't meet without including men.

Its not worth watching the programme because its not the truth, its his fantasy and cannot inform the conversation.

Just practice your 'i told you face' for when she is proved wrong.

That's a really interesting way of thinking about it, and articulates close to my own feelings better than I have myself. Thanks.

Going back to the OPs question, I think this might be a good way of finding some middle ground.
If you genuinely want to engage with your friend on this issue, you need to acknowledge her point of view, even if it's different to yours.
Taking @MissScarletInTheBallroom 's point a step further. I think it's important to recognise that trans people do suffer discrimination, harassment bullying etc, and that being trans is a difficult way to live. However, (and crucially to the argument) this is different to the discrimination and difficulties faced by women, and therefore needs to be addressed separately, with separate solutions.

If this article is not misrepresenting him, it sounds as though Paris Lees is doing to women what "plastic medicine men" used to do (still do?) to Native Americans and their spiritual beliefs - peddling a distorted version from a position of alleged and spurious insider authority.

Does she understand that supporting single sex care makes her essentially a TERF?

Also, sorry about the typos in my earlier post.

The fact that she began reading Joyce's book and couldn't bear to finish it because of the tone is extremely interesting. I suggestion you focus on that since it would be useful know what she found hateful in the book. In fact I would love to hear it.

As you know, Joyce's Trans is not polemical. It adopts an investigative journalistic style (because that's her training and what she was doing in writing the book), and is highly deferential to trans people, including never 'misgendering' them. She doesn't suggest their suffering isn't real, and she doesn't even make a case that people suffering severe dysphoria not receive affirmative medical treatment, though she does point out that the evidence for its benefit is not very robust.

Early on she does begin building the case that it's unethical to treat children suffering from dysphoria with hormones, puberty blockers or surgery or prematurely put them on a social transition track. And the implication is that doing so is committing grave medical malpractice. Perhaps that's what set your friend off? If so perhaps that points a child in the family or that of a close friend?

If she read the full first two chapters (it would be interesting to know where she left off!) then she knows the factual history of the medical treatments and the basic formulation of gender ideology. Within the context of Blanchard's typologies, autogynephilia would have been described in a clinical and morally neutral fashion and contrasted with homosexual transsexualism. And it would have been noted that that formulation of trans was uncontroversial for many years. Also, whatever it was that your friend found uncomfortable about Joyce, she supports her arguments with references so any particular objectionable argument can be independently supported.

The main character's experience in What it Feels Like For a Girl is nearly a prototypical example of the homosexual transsexual, and while Joyce is sympathetic to both types of men in Blanchard's typologies, she is especially sympathetic to homosexuals. Also by the end of the second chapter Joyce lays out the argument that irrespective of how we decide to treat trans people, including accepting them into incongruent single-sex spaces, it's still important to recognize that they are in fact in no sense the opposite sex and that it's scientifically and logically invalid to assert that. If anything the experiences of Lees underscore that he is male, not female, and as rich and compelling as his story is, it argues for compassion and understanding but not his legal inclusion in women's spaces or single-sex services.

thinks trans people are vulnerable souls who probably have some genetic or neurological predisposition that leaves them feeling that they are in the wrong bodies.

Does this not mean that she thinks trans people have a mental health disorder? Mental health disorders may have genetic or neurological bases, but would she treat a mental health disorder by affirming delusions caused by it? Would she 'reward' a mental health patient for their suffering by sterilisation surgery or a drug regime that did not in any way cure their condition but instead left them with lifelong physical ill health? Would she expect the rest of the world to tiptoe around a mental health patient in order not to upset them?

Trans people are a minority.

Done be obtuse 🙄

You could send her this short and succinct article that probably illustrates very well why you wouldn’t want to watch the series.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/paris-lees-doesnt-know-what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl/

Yes, And remember Dr "Beth" Upton, who said that if a patient, possibly a rape victim, specifically asked for a female doctor, it would be fine for Dr Upton to attend them.