"A woman who is trans"

I think it’s deeply sad that the way language and GI has polluted the discussion of what it means to be a woman and how we might work to change society to support us, rather than erode our existence entirely.

Well said @CautiousLurker2 . Pollution of the discussion is right. And something tells me it wasn't accidental.

Yes, I think that is what I am trying to understand - I only believe in two sexes, and so ‘non-binary’ doesn’t exist beyond an ideological framework of ‘gender’.

I personally don’t subscribe to any notions of gender but accept my life is framed by the biological reality of being a woman. I can kind of understand why young women might want to evade the consequences or social restrictions that flow from being a biological woman, though, and I think that before all the GI/trans nonsense they would have framed this within feminist theory. I think it’s deeply sad that language has changed and GI has polluted the discussion of what it means to be a woman and how we might work to change society to support us, rather than erode our existence entirely.

No, we cannot 'live and let live' when a fully intact male is in our change rooms and battered womens shelters. We NEVER will. Rape survivors like me and trauma survivors CANNOT LET IT REST until our safe spaces are restored as female only single sex.

And you are confusing SEX (biological) with 'gender' - which is a man made, misogynistic social construct based on sexist stereotypes.

No it does not. It does not say males can be excluded from male spaces.

Show exactly where it says that about males.

You do. If you were born as the male sex, you have the right to a male sex based space.
If you were born as the female sex, you have the right to a female sex based space.

If you were born of the male sex, you never had the right to enter the female sex-bad space.

Further proof, were it needed (it's not) that these men may identify as us, but they never identify with us.

We're the props to their LARP and nothing more. Support humans.

But you DON'T have the right to enter female spaces, and you never did.

Females have the right to female spaces, which we always did.

You're taking our rights away, not the other way around. Why do your rights as the predator and oppressor sex class outweigh the rights of the vulnerable and oppressed sex class? Your Male Entitlement reeks through the screen. Women put themselves last. You, as a male, put yourself FIRST, and the rights of women last.

Only if you're working within the ideological confines of gender identity and its redefinitions of "woman" and "man".

They really think of themselves and centre only themselves. They never ONCE stop to think of the trauma, as well as the worry we women go through every time we have to fight for our rights. I've never seen such gaslighting and DARVOing of victimhood before. These males have made themselves the victims. They really think we don't worry?? ??

You males are not being 'excluded' by being told you must use the appropriate single sex facility.

You think like a male with Male Entitlement. Women put others first, and wouldn't enter a space if it made the original space owners uncomfortable. The fact that you don't give a stuff how you affect others, only what you want, shows classic Male Entitlement and Male Pattern Thought Process. Even your thoughts and actions are dominated by your male socialisation.

Thank you to all the posters on here who have defended women so well. The topic is so exhausting but it's so important to defend our spaces.

What do you think a woman is?

If you could, describe what makes you feel like you are a woman, without relying on stereotypes.

For centuries women have not liked how we have been treated legally and socially by men. Women have worked really hard to change laws and what women can do and be socially. We know that we arent defined by these contraints -women is our sex, not roles imposed by men.

Can you see the irony of men saying they like the idea of being treated in these mainly male imposed contraints, and therefore a women is not sex, but a way to present and be treated?

Yep, for me this is key. It is so offensive. Women throughout history have been essentially enslaved by men, belittled, abused, treated as a resource rather than human beings. And now we've managed, in some countries, to free ourselves from the worst of that, some men think that we should be defined by our 'gender', the tool of our oppression? How dare men, how actually dare they?

But a male cannot become a woman. So no, you didn't become a woman. You became a facsimile of the stereotype of women you think is accurate. You have no frame of reference of being a female, of being a woman. No growing from a girl into a woman, no periods, no males leering at you and whistling, no sexual assault or harassment (survey in Scotland shows 97% of all females have experienced sexual harassment). You have no idea how girls are socialised from childhood to prioritise males. You've been socialised as a male. You can no more 'understand' what it's like to be a woman than a heterosexual person can understand what it's like to be gay. You have no frame of reference to understand what it's like to be a woman, than a white person does to understand what it's like to be an African American.

Trans activists have been deliberately trying to upend long-held definitions and manipulate language, to control the agenda. Calling women such dehumanising language as 'menstruators', 'cervix havers', 'birthing person', 'non man' (as if man is the default) and 'front holes'. They will literally do everything and anything to avoid using the word 'woman' when it comes to health issues, but still use the word man when it comes to men's health issues like prostates.

Those who control the language, control the narrative. As Gobbels himself said. Now that people are starting to realise that a 'transwoman' is a fully intact male, they once again have to change tactics and use 'a woman who is trans'. They are continually on the run changing definitions each and every single time the public realise they are talking about fully intact males.

But whether we like it or not, all of us do have one of two sexes, whether we like it or not. It's a fundamental part of the framework of who we are, but it should never be what defines us; and it should never be apologised for.

How does casting aside the idea of being an actual woman help to address injustice and misogyny - any more than we could end racism by pretending that black people aren't really black, or by suggesting that it is problematic and maybe in some way their own 'fault' that they are black?

So it is about controlling other people?

You want other people to see you as not male and treat you in the way you believe women should be treated?

How does that fit with safeguarding? Why should men decide that they can hide their sex and ignore safeguarding?

For centuries women have not liked how we have been treated legally and socially by men. Women have worked really hard to change laws and what women can do and be socially. We know that we arent defined by these contraints -women is our sex, not roles imposed by men.

Can you see the irony of men saying they like the idea of being treated in these mainly male imposed contraints, and therefore a women is not sex, but a way to present and be treated?

In my head, non-binary simply means ‘would prefer not to be seen through the lens of - or confined by - one’s biological sex’. It’s pretty much what every feminist has been arguing for from the beginning of time, isn’t it? And every gay and lesbian activist?

@ThatOpalTurtle you've read a lot of testimony from posters setting out why they find it upsetting, alarming and a complete barrier to use when male persons intrude into female spaces.

You've expressed empathy and sorrow.

Can I ask, very simply, are you going to stop using them, now you know? Yes or no?

To echo the pp.

im not a support human for a man to use for validation.

I don’t want a man in women’s single sex spaces. The law says they can’t be there. Why do they have the right to break the law?

this behaviour is insidious and weakens women’s consent based protections across the board including against rape, everyone’s protection against stealthing and has no regard for the trauma and upset they cause.

I don’t think some people understand that other people are not therapeutic resources for their use.

The current idealism that everyone should be kind is so oversimplistic and harmful. It really has produced an outcome where some people feel they have to be kind to their own detriment and some people have an expectation that the world should be kind to them without reciprocity. So, some male people now expect to receive kindness while that ‘kindness’ causes direct harm to others. That ‘kindness’ is only one way.

Worse, there has been this insidious move to create policy to coerce that particular kindness. Other people should never be therapeutic resources for others without consent. Yet, this entire construction of ‘don’t mention the truth even neutrally’ and be ‘kind’ is based on that concept. .

No you have acknowledged you have not changed sex not if you choose to enter women only single sex spaces.

Or you see the women in the spaces akin to support dogs who provide you with what you need.

I think this clip highlights much of the issue.

https://x.com/shahrarali/status/2013394229339332916?s=46

“It is the truth”.

The pressure on others to use the sex based language for female people for male people so as to not hurt those male person’s feelings, when that male person is in no way a female person is immense.

Well done Bethany.

There are many of us who have experienced this.

The issue comes from the expectation that everyone else then has to use the language you feel comfortable with.

If all someone did was choose to undergo extreme body modification, and announce that they had terminology to refer to them that was completely new and not referencing anything else that changed the definition of that other thing and that was all, great. Others do that now with other identities.

There should never be laws upholding a personal demand to be treated as if your personal reality that is not material reality is everyone else’s material reality. If you wanted to label yourself as something, you should be free to do that. But society should not have to treat that as being materially real if it is not.

If a group of male people all cosmetically changed their appear and adopted a new label for themselves that was absolutely unique to them, but didn’t demand that they were not male people when sex matters, and didn’t demand that society change the language away from sex based to suit them, maybe we’d be in a different position.

No one should get to dictate common use language be changed to suit them specifically. There has been this false expectation set that this is the case. It isn’t.

However, a group of male people who have changed their appearance to fit an identity but still understand they are male, who understand that they are rejecting the single sex provisions for their sex but campaign for additional provisions open to all people that suit their needs but never expected to be treated as female when they were not, who understand that some people will still choose language based on sex but it is not hatred for them to do so, surely that was a basis to work on.

That didn’t happen though.

Instead, a group of people leveraged the philosophical theory that what they said they were, they were. Even if these claims had no basis in material reality. They also then have tried to force compliance either through emotional coercion or coercive policies that people act as if they believe something that is not materially real. Why should a group of people in a democratic society have the right to do this?

In other words. If someone wishes to change their bodies and declare they are now a [insert created term here], ok. They should not be discriminated against in finding a job that isn’t for a protected characteristic, or in accommodation or health services etc. If they don’t want to use single sex provisions for their sex, they find alternative / campaign for solutions that are not for the opposite sex that they are materially not. They should not get to enforce language change. And if they want additional provisions for themselves, then they have the same rights as everyone else to campaign to get those.