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.

It isn’t some “choose” to use them to describe sex that’s just what they mean, so while you may have an emotional response to them that’s more your issue. For example I have a real hideous fear of rodents. I don’t make it anyone else’s issue though. Could you not have therapy to get over that emotional response?

You need to reframe your thinking OP - when someone correctly sexes you then say to yourself ‘absolutely, I am a man, I am wearing what I want, and I am me - with all the varied attributes that I have’.

Your obsession with baseless stereotyping is really unhealthy.

I have no direct experience of how girls treat each other.

😂😂 This has been blindingly obvious throughout your thread. Yet you persist in telling us what women/girls are, how we behave, and a bunch of other male-perspective, stereotyped misconceptions about female life.

Chiming with others - and mirroring yourself, @AlphaTransWoman - I went to a single-sex grammar school. Within school, we had stabbings (scalpels & glass), beatings and torture of the same type that happens in boys' schools.

My brother went to my school's partner establishment: the intra-pupil bullying was the same, so was the proportion of insanely vindictive teachers to kind & nurturing ones.

Girls suffered more psycho-social bullying and sexual harassment (from staff), but boys would be shamed for perceived failures in 'masculinity': a different kind of emotional abuse, but much the same in intent and effect.

And ours was the posh school! Both girls and boys were taunted, harassed and assaulted in town by students from other schools who thought we needed bringing down a peg.

I don't even know why I'm sharing this, except perhaps to highlight that you really have no fucking clue about being a girl or a woman.

And ... a woman is not a failed or faulty man. A woman is just another human, distinct from a man in physical biology only. The humanity's the same mixture of good & bad, weak & strong; the body is significantly different.

The physical differences are necessary to the propagation of our species: it's that simple and that fundamental. Kind/competitive? Rational/sentimental? False dichotomies. You've been suckered by patriarchy.

OP, are you surprised by the responses you’re getting?

I think there's way too much negative emotional baggage associated with the word "man". When I think "man" I think about Trump or Putin. Or maybe the guy in the 1980s razor blade advert who somehow manages to be a businessman, elite sportsman and astronaut at the same time (I hated that guy). Or James Bond. Or Nietzsche's Superman.

I know not what I am, but I know I am not a man.

Trudeau? Obama??

Yes. I had no idea things were this complicated.

My only (indirect) experience of all this was from my sister who went to a girls school. She wasn't bullied there and had lots of friends. She complained sometimes that the place was a bit infantilising (the teachers called the girls by their first names and sometimes referred to them as "young ladies" which she hated), but generally her experience there was very positive.

Meanwhile I was going through hell. It felt like boys and men were held to a higher standard somehow, expected to do better and be leaders.

So your conception of 'a man' is some sort of patriarchal ideal?

If every male human who doesn't meet this ideal is 'not a man', what the hell are the normal, average, 99% of male humans?

I thought the Big 4 were crazy strict about things like dress code? Maybe they've moved on a bit. I'm civil service, where in theory there's no dress code at all but you sort of wear what feels right for the position you are in.

I mean, come on. Use your brain. Your critical thinking skills.

You know all men are not like these two…..?

Yes but they are the apex predators of the male power pyramid.

The point is that I don't admire them. I don't want to be like them.

I used to work for the civil service many moons ago, and the dress code back then was suit and tie for men, and anything vaguely smart casual for women, which I found deeply sexist as a lot of men hated the suits and not being able to wear their own smart casual ensembles. I'm glad it's changed.

I agree it is complicated if you try to categorise everyone by stereotypes, because precisely no one fits the gender stereotypes perfectly. Everyone is a mix of both stereotypically male & stereotypically female characteristics and preferences.

That seems to me to be so much richer and more fun and more real, and much kinder than expecting people to fit neatly into a box, and then medicalising them when they don’t

Whereas, in real life, women are held to far higher standards.

They’re judged for walking out on their families - to the extent that it’s taboo. Men do it daily, with no repercussions.

Women are expected to be kind, behave, be caring - all the shit you’ve espoused on this thread - whereas ‘boys will be boys’.

It begins in childhood - little girls are expected to sit still and be good. Be a good influence. Boys are disruptive, and it’s overlooked and excused. Expected, even.

Women are held to a far higher standard in real life.

Nor do a great many men.

So don’t be…..?

My husband isn’t like them.

Nor my father, my brother, my brothers in law, my father in law, my uncles, my grandfathers, my friends’ husbands, my husband’s friends…..? The list goes on and on and one. Not one of them are.

If you are / define yourself to be passive and emotionally dependent then I think that signifies some deep trauma or possible abandonment type issues in the past.

These are not female characteristics. As a woman, I cannot identify with such traits. I can't abide passive, submissive and emotionally dependent people. I find clingy and emotional people very annoying and I hate overly emotive language. I dislike it because it comes across (to me personally) as weak and pathetic. I understand that some folk are like this, but there is usually a historical background for that type of behaviour.

Firstly, a guarantee that a trans woman would never have to share a hospital ward or prison cell with men. As mentioned before, third spaces seems to be the only practical solution here.

What definition of "trans wonan" are you using? Is it someone with a GRC, anyone protected by the PC of Gender Reassignment or something else?

Given that "trans women" are in prison for rape, murder, and violence why would you want to be in a space with them? Its not for safety reasons.

Thirdly, deliberately deadnaming or misgendering a trans person when asked not to to so should be considered a form of harassment in the workplace or in the context of the provision of services.

Do you consider compelled speech wrong? Do you think employers or colleagues should be force an individual to lie under threat of losing their job?

How much therapy did you have OP?

I also think the therapist has done you a huge disservice by immediately agreeing with you about being a woman.

God, the harm this ideology is doing is immense!

What about Monty Don or Ben Fogle, as two random examples of nice men.

Why do you only look at the nasty men?

There's also something telling in that when you think 'Man' you instantly think of two psychopaths. That's your brain automatically imagining the worst type of behaviout that you associate with males. Bad experiences with male role models growing up can do this.

Its telling that a man who associates men with the very worst behaviour, then expects women to see him as a woman.

Christ OP, look at all these women pausing with their rage for a minute and being kind and listening to you and offering you advice.

Many of us have needed therapy for shitty sex related life experiences.

I mean this with sincerity, these are not healthy thoughts to have about an entire sex. I've got a sinking feeling that something really awful might have happened to you in the past and this is how it's manifested itself. I'm so sorry if that is the case.

But you need someone to help you, because blouses and ladies loos aren't going to help to adjust those very dysfunctional ideas you have about both females and your own sex.

I really hope you take this in the honest spirit it was meant

@ZuttZeVootEeeVo

The whole prison thing is pretty complicated, and I agree there is a wide spectrum of individuals in custody describing themselves as "trans women" who should not necessarily be accommodated together.

As I said in a previous post, full solitary confinement may be the only way forwards to protect trans women from men (and from each other) while protecting women from trans women.

As I said before, this is unlikely to be an attractive option to any male born offender who is not genuinely a trans woman. I feel that trans women prisoners should be treated humanely however, even if convicted of serious offences, and should be permitted to wear female clothing while in custody. They should also be given access to books and other distractions to support their mental health while being held in isolation.

@ZuttZeVootEeeVo

I think there is a difference between compelled speech and basic politeness. Suppose you have a member of your team at work named Stewart. Another team member calls him "Stu". Stewart asks him not to call him that and prefers to be called Stewart.

If your colleague kept calling Stewart "Stu" regardless, I'm sure you would have a word with them and ask them to desist. I don't think that counts as compelled speech.