I hope you will be proud of me..

I use "claiming to be women" as the most objective wording. "Pretending," to me, carries too much of a bad faith claim, when we know many actually believe in it. Conversely, "men who believe they are women" is a statement that can't be confirmed from the outside and doesn't cover the very same bad faith actors.

True. But losing your job is a big risk in some places. and men have made it be so. The wheel is turning but realistically, are most of us as brave as Kathleen Stock, Sandie Peggie Etc? We'd like to think we are, but let's be honest here. I cam see Lins' point there.

I would say "Men who claim to be women" or "Men who say they are women". It needs to be blunt to get through.

It needs to include the accurate sex , whichever way you cut the rest of it.

This is the problem. Most women fear speaking out publicly. The inability to speak out freely is itself a disadvantage for women

It’s so damn hard!!

Claiming is a better word, thanks!

I'm sticking with pretending. You can claim things you're entitled to, a lottery win, an inheritance etc.

Pretence is always false.

I agree with you now!!

The word "pretend" strongly implies a conscious act of make-believe, acting, or deception.

The word "claim" implies an assertion of a right, a belief, or a fact that has not been universally proven or accepted.

Well done OP
TRAs have to keep reciting the mantra of TW are women because if they don't keep it up, their whole world will collapse, especially if they have trans-identifying friends and family.

I had a conversation with a friend's cousin who asked me about toilets (always toilets first isn't it?) and where did I expect TW to go? I answered 'the mens' loos of course' I was told I was wrong and that TW would be subject to great harm if they used mens' facilities. I answered that other men probably wouldn't care; because isn't this male loo etiquette? Do what you have to do, don't hang around and don't look at other men??

This person didn't stop to consider biological women at all.
I was getting really frustrated- I cannot understand how people can think like this. It is absolutely misogyny.

I decided to leave it there before my blood pressure shot through the roof.

@Shedmistress had it right. “Just use ‘men’.

If there are really people who actually believe it (which I struggle to accept) then that can only be as a result of society allowing that belief to propagate for too long...

by there being a sensitivity towards language, and a cohort of (primarily) men who have bullied others into a way of behaving, so the concept that you could change sex began to take ground.

Before that there would have been almost universal acceptance that a man can not become a woman - look more like one - yes / mirror the habits of women a bit closer - yes / dress more like a woman - yes / take part more in activities traditionally undertaken by women - yes - but be a woman, no.

But this period of manipulating language and emotion has been responsible for people believing that there are no boundaries - if you say it loud enough, if you say it long enough and if you drown out any other noise, then you can be what you want...

so, how do we re-balance society?

by putting it back in perspective, by telling the truth, by using language clearly to express what is actually happening.

so, a 'trans woman' is a man pretending to be a woman - rebalances that perspective

• there is a clarity that they are still a man - sex is immutable
• people know what pretence is - a temporary pretending means mirroring / looking like / showing stereotypical signals etc.
• everyone knows that it is not real
• it is known to be a veneer - a child pretending to be a dog during the day, at night, for 4 weeks in a row - is known to still be a child... there is no belief that anything underneath has changed, just that a thin veil has been drawn across to pretend to be like something else
• there is no longer a belief that they are actually the pretended item - no belief that the man is now a woman.

It is a very non-emotive way of expressing what is actually happening... it puts it back into perspective - that this is something being done by the person as an act, but that it is not real - so no-one else has to go along with it... we can acknowledge that the pretence for some is more real than for others - they get into role much more (sadly even to the point of body mutilation - which must therefore be a point of mental health issues as that is taking pretence too far), but at a simpler level one person might put on a skirt but keep the beard, another will pretend more thoroughly and do more to look like their pretence.

Is it rude - no, because it is accurately describing what is happening - the only way to see that as rude would be if there were any truth to it and we know that there can be no truth, because a man can not become a woman - not even by 1% - they remain a man, just now a slightly different shape man.

we need to start back from basics - from biology, from reality - not from a perspective where what is allowed is still being dictated by the few who are manipulative. If we are told that some truly believe in it and therefore we must honour that belief / be sensitive etc. the response must be no - we are about rebalancing back to truth - while it might hurt to be told that you are delusional / pretending / that your belief can not ever be real or accurate - how much ruder, less sensitive would it be to promulgate a falsehood which has been shown to harm so many (esp. women, but also youngsters who get sucked in) - sometimes the truth is brutally honest, but never is the truth the wrong thing to support.

And the reality is that we know that there isn't a full belief in being able to change sex - apart from anything else, why is there self-reference as 'trans women' - because there is an unwritten / unspoken acceptance that they are not women - but what they want to be is the equivalent of / have access to / have the rights to pretend to be women.

so, actually I think we do no favours by anything other than gentle, non-emotive language which accurately reflects what is going on... and I think that a man pretending to be a woman is the most accurate way I know of explaining what is happening...

You are so articulate, thank you!

A big thing i have a problem with with is empathy. This word has lost its original meaning. I have an educational background in Latin and Ancient Greek, so it really irritates me. The pathos bit is suffering. Fine. But 'em' is in, and 'sym' with.

So I can have empathy with someone who has had a life experience I have had, e.g. stood on a plug, failed an exam as I have lived it, am in it, and sympathy with something I could imagine happening and feel sorry for because it is unpleasant but have not been in.

I can therefore as a woman, have no empathy with these men pretending to be women as regards their 'feminine' experience, as they have none, and i do. But I could empathise if they stood on a plug.

I could have sympathy, and indeed did, in my younger more naive years, (I was part of a protest against Germaine Greer at my University College, much to my adult shame now I know better) with these men.

But that ship left the harbour under full sail many years ago.

So fuck empathy and the trojan horse it was invited in on is the TLDNR version.

If people paid attention to what words actually mean rather than what they'd like them to mean, oh, I don't know, let's use 'woman' as a random example 😂, we'd all be better off.

Humpty Dumpty is not a role model.

So true! Pay attention to what words actually mean and facts.

"A man cannot become a woman. You cannot make yourself into the opposite sex. It simply doesn't happen."

I think in a work situation id pass it back to whoever is talking ie 'By trans woman do you mean males? Where does that leave us in relation to the legality of single sex provision'.

This sounds like a good way to do it. I’m
learning so much from being on this board. Thank you!

For many years we got deleted on here if we called a man a 'man'. I got very used to typing 'male'.

Telling the truth got you deleted. That’s awful!

Oh, thats not even the half of it.

And bear in mind, this was one of the very few places online we were allowed to discuss these things at all.

And MN got some real flak for allowing us to do so, even under limited terms, so i for one am grateful. Adverts pulled etc...

I can imagine you had to be so careful in what you said.

It also led to the high handed way they split the Feminism and Women's Rights board, because (and we should acknowledge this) some on the then single board were the ones complaining to MNHQ that it wasn't nice, or kind, now men were being talked about.

So to save those who didn't want to hear unkind words about men they were given their very own safe space where they wouldn't have to encounter posts about men that were "unkind".

So I suppose it was, is something that those who are gender critical were not totally banned, but it hasn't really worked, and (without being complacent) those who were posting challenging comments about men identifying as women have shown they were part of the vanguard of what is now everyday discussion.

Maybe they should just shut chat down.

And re-instate the original women's rights forum, which if you look at the web link for this forum is still women's rights.

And the section thay we were shunted off from is pretty much dead these days. Funny that.