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.

I think ultimately is is about men tending to be more competitive and rational while women tend to be more cooperative, empathic and emotional. Men generally like to be assertive and in charge of things, women are more likely to to be kind and take a supporting role.

Obviously this is a very broad generalisation and there are outliers

I know you won't answer, but how are the outliers supposed to know if they are men or women? Again, how are you distinguishing between the two? If I'm emotional, am I a woman or an outlier of a man? What if I'm averagely emotional?

@AlphaTransWoman I’d still like to know what traits all women have and that you also share, that all men don’t?

Also why you feel you are a woman rather than a gender non conforming man?

I admire that you have continued to respond @AlphaTransWoman I’d admire you more if as a result of this conversation you were able to adjust your thinking to progress the twaw debate. Perhaps as @VeryUninspired suggests ‘Also why you feel you are a woman rather than a gender non conforming man?’ Perhaps the issue is not twaw but that gender needs to be accepted across a much broader spectrum.

Im with AFieldGuideToTrees here, but if womens awards were to compensated for womens low self-esteem, Mulvaney would be exempt.

Ive never spoken with a male with gender who isnt brimming over with self-esteem.

Just catching up with this. I see the OP has responded to some questions which is good, but ultimately they boil down to ‘my feeling’. ‘My feelings’ do not make a man a woman.

OP - can you respond to my earlier question about whether a white person can be black based on a psychological and social sense? If so, what would that be?

I’d also like to see a response to @VeryUninspired’s question of “why you feel you are a woman rather than a gender non conforming man” - when the latter is actually what you are (just as I’m 54 years old and not 34, even if I do feel younger than I am)

I use the accessible toilets whenever I can in order to avoid causing upset or offence to other women. Is that a bad thing?

Yes it is. That space is not for you. Just like the women's toilets are not for you. You have a designated space, male toilets. If using them makes you uncomfortable well tough that's a you problem. Stop assuming that women are support people who are there to accommodate those around them. That shit is regressive misogynistic bollox.

@AlphaTransWoman

"I use the accessible toilets whenever I can in order to avoid causing upset or offence to other women. Is that a bad thing?"

Yes it fucking well is. You should be using the men's toilets. The only reason to be using accessible toilets (nice manipulation of language by avoiding saying disabled btw) is if you have a disability.

Oh yes because woman are meant to be sweet and accommodating right? Being mean is so unladylike.

You should only use the accessible (aka disabled) toilets if you have a disability. If you want that to change that you need to campaign to have that change made. That’s not because it’s not a possible solution, it’s because the number of required toilets of each type is based on how many men/women/disabled there are in the population. Another less expensive and intrusive solution might be just using the stall rather than the urinal in the men’s toilet.

I think your descriptions of women are bizarre. Do you know many women?

OK. I'm a woman (of the adult human female type). I hate wearing dresses, very rarely wear makeup, never wear high heels. I love in jeans or shorts and t-shirts. I'm competitive and assertive. I'm not particularly empathetic and would not choose a "supporting role". I like to weightlift, watch football and drink pints in the pub with my mates.

What is it you have in common with me that would make you a woman that you don't have in common with men?

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

It's not mean, or exclusion, it's just fact. Would you say it was mean to exclude a cat from being a zebra, a 50 year-old man from being a child, a 5 foot 3 person from being tall, or a white person from being black? They don't choose who/what they are either. Do you think they should be able to be socially and legally considered to belong to those categories just because they want to?

All TW say they identify as women due to feelings of "empathy, softness, supporting roles.. "

Yet when women fight back about shared spaces and safety, women are all a bunch of nasty, exclusionary, hateful witches.

So there is some confusion around TWs definition of a woman for sure. As well as a shed load of self entitlement.

Which is a very male trait in my experience.

I'm going to repeat this question because so far all you've said is that you can smile at yourself in a mirror. This is not reason enough for people to believe you need to use female spaces.

What couldn't you do as a man that you can now do as a 'woman'?

These are my two other unanswered questions.

As a TRA are you campaigning for third spaces which you said you are in favour of? If so, many women would support this but many TRAs would say it's transphobic.

Do you really think that people like Eddie Izzard are actually female one day and male the next, depending on whether they are getting work or wearing pink to use the female toilets?

And one new one.

You call yourself a trans rights advocate. What rights are you advocating for that you don't already have?

Hopeful of an answer but most TW who bother to engage have failed to answer the most basic of questions so far.

All you have done with this thread, OP, is demonstrate the utter incoherence, vacuity and misogyny of gender identity ideology.

Stay out of women's spaces, and disabled people's.

And a complete misunderstanding of what gender critical means!

It would actually make sense to be transracial as race is not a binary thing and you can be mixed race or culturally identify.
It's much much more offensive to say you become a woman. Women have been oppressed due to their biology forever. 3 women a week are killed by their partner or ex partner.
The stats show tw are more of a danger than men, more likely to be a sex offender and women almost none. So your toilet point is completely wrong and you've put your feelings ahead of a posters 7 year old girl.
Your ideas about why women's awards exist are truly twisted, you've muddled up two things. Yes women don't put themselves forward as much but even when they do they are blocked. Attitude mag could easily have put a lesbian like Jo phoenix as their winner, who has been hounded for trying to protect lesbians and children, but no they chose Dylan mulvany.

It would actually make sense to be transracial

I disagree. I am 100% white. I am not eg black or mixed race. As such I have no right (and rightly so) to identify as such, or access services etc that are solely for black or mixed race people. If I blackfaced that would be hugely offensive (and rightly so) or if I demanded that others referred to me as such or claimed that I understood psychologically and socially what it meant to be black or mixed race then seriousquestions would be raised about me. I certainly wouldn’t receive awards for black person of the year - again, rightly so. It is simply that women (the adult human kind) are expected to budge up for men, acquiesce to their demands or risk violence, intimidation, economic hardship, discomfort and so on, and #bekind. Plus ça change

I am not trans, but I know a lot of people who are, and my partner works with lots of trans people through an LGBTQ+ charity.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but in my own experience the OP does not represent a typical trans person. Most trans people do not "want to be" anything. This is not a choice. They simply "are".

I have never heard "male values" or "female values" being raised as a factor when someone describes what it is to be born into a body that does not conform with what you know yourself to be.

I don't pretend to understand it. But as a middle aged gay man there are lots of things I don't understand about people around me. I still accept those things as their reality.

I guess my main point is I don't think the OP is representing the typical trans experience or view, and I find this thread potentially quite harmful if people think they are.

This is the only point you've made that is worth considering, OP.

We live in a highly sexist society; women come off worse financially, politically, physically than men. So the stereotypes ascribed to either sex can't help but be value-laden.

Whatever values we ascribe to either sex always need to be seen in that context.

@devondad1

I guess my main point is I don't think the OP is representing the typical trans experience or view, and I find this thread potentially quite harmful if people think they are.

Harmful to who, if you don't mind me asking.

I guess my main point is I don't think the OP is representing the typical trans experience or view, and I find this thread potentially quite harmful if people think they are.

Do you mean that all trans people should have on view or position, and that any trans person who deviates from that should not speak?

Which positions do you think aren't 'typical'?

I think any misinformation is potentially harmful to everyone.

In this case then on the one hand to trans people who I think are being misrepresented, but also to non-trans people who I think are potentially being misinformed if they think the views they are reading are typical.

Hopefully most people realise that isn't the case, but I'm not sure that's universal.

Do you think trans people are borg, devondad?

I think the focus on "temperamental fit", "subscribing to male values" and descriptions of men as "assertive" and women as "cooperative and emotional" is over-simplifying and not very helpful. It seems to be equating transwomen with effeminate men, and transmen with masculine women, and that is not the case in my experience.

This is just my view. I am not attacking anyone. I just believe from what I have been told by many trans people that the typical trans experience is much more fundamental than these comments suggest.

Essentially yes, this is precisely the basis on which the OP has decided he's a woman

In a way it would be better if the word 'lady' had been picked for appropriation as that gendered concept is really what they're going for

Someone made a comment up thread that this used to be in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). It very much still should be

Either the OP is sincere in his belief that non conformance to sexist stereotypes makes him a woman, in which case he urgently needs psychiatric help, or he's on the wind up (or, as I suspect, a combination of the two).

All in all, I'm glad I went to bed