Hello, I'm a TRA - ask me anything

[AlphaTransWoman]

Good evening,

I'm a transgender rights advocate. I say "advocate" rather than "activist" because I believe in constructive debate and consensus building rather than the hostile, shouty kind of activism that gets us nowhere.

I am here because I am genuinely interested in seeing if there is some kind of compromise that can be reached between pro trans and gender critical views. Obviously this is difficult because we may disagree about something pretty fundamental. I feel passionately that trans women are women (at least in the psychological and social sense), so there's an obvious divide if you do not.

The question is, can we find ways to co-exist and find an acceptable way forward on some of the difficult issues that arise around trans acceptance? So I'm happy to have a go answering anything you care to ask in good faith. Who knows, we might even make some progress.

Sorry to do this, but given the context:

Women have XX chromosomes.
Men have XY chromosomes.

You know, that's what I had to start with, then changed it. 😆

Tsk, the female brain, eh! 💄

Riley Gaines, the swimmer who had to compete against Lia Thomas has been making a push for 10 October to be the real women’s day. The reason for the date is because it’s the 10th of the 10th.

Or, Roman numerals XX.

Isn’t it a bit mean to exclude trans women? We don’t choose our chromosomes after all.

😆

We're big meanies us women.

Mean to exclude them from what?

You can just organise your own transwomen’s day.

We’d be more than happy to be excluded from that, of course!

In the gents, on the other hand, men are standing there holding their penises using the urinals. Do you honestly think I'm safe walking in on them wearing a dress?

^ do you have a penis? Do you honestly think we feel safe around you?

Have you ever faked a call on your phone or pretended to have forgotten something because the man getting into the lift with you seems off? Thought about which part of the body you would attack if needed in self defence? This is a fundamental part of the psychosocial experience of being a woman. We have a threat detector built in that lets us know that penis=potential threat to our life. Nothing to do with whether we're wearing a dress. Women can dress in a suit, a swimming costume or jeans and a hoodie and are still vulnerable. It's only putting on a dress that makes you feel vulnerable.

So you really, genuinely believe 100% that you are a woman and you are NOT a man?

This is madness to me! As I said in my very first comment, when growing up I thought people who transitioned just wanted to be recognised and ‘treated’ like a woman. Trans women wanted to live a life that meant they were able to dress a certain way, wear makeup and have a feminine name.

I really thought that’s all there was too it and that trans women would be happy that they were being seen as a woman by society. It’s really a completely different thing to actually believe you are a woman and you’re no longer a man, just because you said so. I want to be a man now so can I just be a man? I don’t have to do anything to graduate to the next stage? I’m a man because I’ve said I am, I mean, to heck with sex and my genetic make up. Do you believe genes are irrelevant and mean nothing?

<and yes I’m back because this thread is still on my mind>

No, in many cases the reason for these things is that parts of women's lives, mainly related to childbearing, tend to make it less likely that they will take on certain roles. For example, in politics. The years spent pregnant and with infants means many women are tied down at a time when men are more likely to be in the workforce.

That has nothing to so with anyone male.

I don't think I've ever heard much evidence that transwomen are more in danger in most men's toilets than any other male person. I expect there will be the odd spot that would be, but from what I have heard from most men no one really cares about a man in a dress in the men's toilets. And there are transwomen who use them and seem to find it ok.

As an ex-clubber, I used the men’s a fair few times when there was a queue for the women’s. I never felt humiliated.

What do you mean? ‘It’s a bit mean’.

Women are obliged to put their own needs behind yours so they don’t appear ‘mean’.

This is the whole issue. So many trans women are incredibly sexist. Women don’t compete with men for awards because of sexism. Not because they don’t have the confidence.

You don’t want to use the women’s facilities because being near biological men while you use the bathroom bothers you. It’s bothers women too. And yet, you still believe they should accept using the bathroom near a biological man if he chooses to say he is a woman.

At every turn you believe Women should ignored their own needs to centre the wants of biological men. You don’t believe men should accommodate you, because that’s just how the world is. You believe women should move over and accommodate biological women no matter how uncomfortable it makes them, what danger it puts the them in or how they feel. You won’t accept that that’s just how the world is.

You think gender stereotypes make you a woman. Where the most women, even if they fit the stereotypes, don’t believe those stereotypes should exist and should restrict people.

Gender critical people don’t like sayings like ‘be a man’ because gender stereotypes are damaging for men and women.

I am mixed race. I have dark hair and very dark eyes and olive skin. I can bleach my hair and wear blue contacts and make my skin paler. In winter can pass for white, especially when I have had my hair is blond. Non of that changes that I am mixed race. Bleaching my hair, doesn’t mean my hair isn’t almost black anymore. It hasn’t changed the DNA. Wearing contacts doesn’t mean my eyes are actually blue. I didn’t choose to be mixed race. At times, especially as a child, I was uncomfortable due to racism. I didn’t fit the stereotypes of my non white family and rejected a lot of their expectations of women. That doesn’t change my DNA.

Your thinking entirely centres biological males. Biological males should not be expected to change and accommodate biological men who don’t fit the gender stereotypes. But women should change, makes themselves uncomfortable, put themselves in danger to accommodate biological men or they will be called mean.

Do you realise many of us women have been called mean, or a bitch, or high maintenance or lots of other insults for standing up for ourselves in all sorts of settings for generations? Being called mean for not accommodating biological men into women’s spaces, means nothing.

It’s not our job to be kind, to our own detriment. The fact that you think it is, is sexism.

798,000 women a year In the UK are abused or sexually assaulted by men. About 150 a year are killed.

A woman is not a costume. It is not a nice dress and some lipstick and crying at the funeral scene in 'my girl'

Women have been fighting for 60 years to get away from sexist stereotypes that women are stepford wife looking support humans whose function in society is to look after their husband, their children, the house and look beautiful while doing it.

Being a woman is being told you are lesser than and your views and dreams are not as important

It is being told to dress sexy but not too sexy or the sexual abuse is your fault

It is being on a train station platform going home at the age of 17 when a drunken man and his friend surround you and one sticks his hand down your top while whispering in your ear that you look like his girlfriend while his mates cheer #metoo

It is being fearful to walk home alone in case you are raped. Sarah Everard was just walking home.

It is periods, birthing children, feeding children

It is being told that if you go back to work and put the kids in nursery that you are a terrible mother but if you don't go back to work you are leaching off your hard working husband

It is being expected to do neatly all the housework because it is presumed we all love a bit of hoovering

It is being expected to give up your career and pension to look after children and elderly parents and when your husband runs off with a work colleague it is your fault as you didn't stay attractive enough for him.

It is lesbians being told they just need a good seeing to.

It is menopause and becoming invisible in society once you reach a certain age.

Femininity is the dressing pretty bit. You can be an effeminate man all you like. Wear a dress and call yourself Brenda all you like we really don't care. It doesn't however make you a woman. Our lived experiences are too different. We need our single sex spaces to be protected from men. Good men stay out so bad men stand out. We can't tell the difference between a man in a dress with a female mind and a man in a dress with a perverted male mind.

By the way I am a woman who runs her own business, never wears make up or dresses, isn't emotional or empathetic particularly- by your definition I am a man? I will tell my stay at home father husband that

Gender stereotypes can fuck right off.

Wrong

Women need these positions as we are discriminated against by men and lack the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.

Option one - employ a woman who may need to take time off to go on maternity leave, may want to go part time for a bit while children are young, are more likely to need dependents leave while looking after sick children

Option 2 - hire a man. None of the above applies

Option 3 - hire a trans woman. They get the advantages of Option 2 while ticking a box to say they give women equal opportunity and support diversity... result

Oh the irony 🙄

Because you are using traits that occur in both sexes (eg competitiveness) to categorise people into one or the other gender. By the same logic a tall female is a man, because men tend to be taller.

How are you measuring these traits to distinguish male or female minds? Is there a set score on a questionnaire that draws the line between "you have a male mind" and "you have a female mind"?

So you were only ever here to try and fit in as many offensive attacks on women as possible?

Glad I missed it, tbh. How disingenuous.

Stay out of women's spaces.

Never ever ever have i smiled whilst looking in a mirror. Never. Not once. A common theme in girls in modern society is a self loathing, hatred of our bodies compared to the ridiculous standards set by men. Doesn't mean I'm a transwoman. The literal only thing I have in common with every single women ever to live is my biology and that's it. Its my reproductive system. Not my clothes, not my tastes, not my happiness, not my personality, not my weight, not my hairiness, not my fucking submissiveness. Definitely not my ability to do inane shit like smile in the mirror or feel comfortable in my body. Jfc. You are making such huge shallow generalisations about half the population and can't see why it annoys us?

I don't recognise your description of men being "competitive & rational" - I know plenty of men that are empathetic & cooperative, hate violence and hate alpha-males, dress nicely etc etc.

To me they are brave because they stand against the stereotype of being "traditional " male, be true to what they believe in and call out other men on their attitudes and behaviour. Raise their children to challenge gender roles. They think most men are pretty awful and don't like being lumped with them. They are well aware it doesn't make them female though.

I still don't see why you believe you are woman because you hold the same beliefs and feelings as those men.

I am the competitive rational parent in our house, also the one to read maps which research shows is a "male" brain thing.

Why does wearing a dress over jeans and a top like very many do make a difference??

This has got to be a wind up. You are proposing that who gets into spaces for men and women is determined by how empathetic or competitive someone is?

THAT is how society should be ordered? On one or several personality traits that a random person "thinks women are like"?!

You haven't answered a single one of my questions. I can only assume it's because you don't actually know the answer, or you are worried that articulating an answer will make you look bad (prejudiced or incoherent).

Well this went from bad to worse over night.

@AlphaTransWoman Can you please answer some of my questions above. This is an AMA thread and you’ve not answered my questions.

I’ll throw in another.

Do you believe that the pay gap between women and men is due to women’s low self esteem? If not what other contributing factors may contribute to this pay gap that are specific to women?

OP is either on the wind up or genuinely runs their life on the basis that women are a mass of cartoonish stereotyped ladybrains, all underpinned by a strong but unmistakable streak of certainty that males are more entitled than women.

Bollocks.

Have you modelled you female identity on Emily Howard from little Britain?

'I am a lady, i like lady things like kittens and dresses'