So how do I live in the female gender?

[Definitelynamechanged123]

There are 8834 people in the UK who have a Gender Recognition Certificate.
I am one of them.

To get it, I had to show evidence of transition, surgery etc. Lots of hoops

I also had to swear a Statutory Declaration. I had to go to a Magistrates Court and swear a legal declaration in front of a magistrate. It was all very formal.

I had to swear this:

" have lived as a (insert ‘male’ or ‘female’ as appropriate)
throughout the period of years before the date of this statutory
declaration and I intend to live in that gender until death."

This declaration is legally binding. Apparently if I don't follow this, I can be done for perjury.

So...how do I live as a female and live in that gender until death - I have sworn to do this in front of a magistrate.

I was very surprised that so few trans people have Gender Recognition Certificates.

Why would you? A man cuts my hair. It’s not an intimate service. It’s not a woman only space.

I have 2 trans woman friends. I don’t run screaming from t(em either, but I wouldn’t want to share a changing room with them. Or compete in sport with them. Or have them carry out intimate care without my prior agreement. And if I didn’t know them I wouldn’t fancy being locked in a cell with them.

God these conversations are tedious, you are a man no matter what you have chopped off or what frock you throw on or what paper you sign you are a man! It really is as simple as that! women do not want you in their changing rooms, women do not want you in their toilets, women do not want you pretending to have a clue of the absolute bullshit we go through just because we are women! Biology is science based on actual facts!

As earlier posters said, you are caught in a legal muddle. You can't live as a female. You are not one.

Of course it’s nonsense! I’m not male or ‘living as’ a man if I wear my DH’s hoody. And although he’s never shown any interest, he wouldn’t suddenly become female or be ‘living as’ a woman if he managed to get his feet in my peep toe heels. Would I be ‘living as’ a man if I became a brick layer? Would he be ‘living as’ a woman if he became a beautician? Of course not.

‘Living as’ the opposite sex relies on lazy gender stereotypes and, while it is true that most women and most men wear clothes aimed at their sex, and have their hair cut a certain way and wear/don’t wear make up, that’s because of society, not their sex.

What is ‘living as’ a woman if not some restrictive idea of being feminine and using women’s spaces?

lets explain then…

99% of biological men can kill a biological woman with their bare hands. Biological men can hold a women down and rape her.

99% of biological women could not easily kill a biological man with their bare hands.

women upon women you have got a reasonably fair fight. It is much harder for a biological women to sexually attack another woman.

as a result, us biological women are vulnerable to practically any man on the entire planet. We therefore don’t like to put ourselves in vulnerable situations with unknown biological men. Changing rooms/ toilets etc are places where there is often one way in/out. They often have no windows. They are places where we remove clothing. They may have no one else near them to hear if an attack is going on.

so whether a biological male is a man or a trans women it makes no difference to the fact we do not know them and their intentions. Are they harmless? Most likely. Are attacks rare? Sure but I don’t want to come up against the one who isn’t knowing however they present they could harm me.

I also just don’t want to see a person with a penis getting changed next to me when I am getting changed. Can’t really explain why. I just don’t want to see it! I appreciate some people aren’t bothered but I am.

Why would they?

This is the most unkind myth to trans women I think. The fiction that they look like women and cannot be distinguished from them by women. It is almost never the case.

I don't see people not wishing the OP well.
It doesn't matter on an individual level if a TIM uses the ladies loo or if women can tell their men. It matters on the public safety level because if one man is allowed in then all men are, and at some point a man will humiliate or attack a woman in there. And no I don't specifically mean a TIM will; I mean some or other man.
Also, women with religious/cultural reasons to need a guaranteed women-only bathroom, those who've been attacked/assaulted by men, or indeed those who just want a single-sex space, will not use a public loo that men might go into. A new urinary leash.
Anyway, those are all old conversations.
The interesting one really is what are men going to do about this now? Men need to call out other men who may be making TIMs feel ridiculed or unsafe in men's loos. And/or those men who don't want to use the men's loos need to put in some thought, energy, campaigning etc into thinking of and getting implemented a solution.

Don't annoy a man because he might thump you. Learn to keep your head down.

This is the thing.

For most women, their body never quite "looks right" in their eyes. It's too soft, too flabby, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blemished, too hairy, not hairy enough, and so on. There are very few women who are genuinely happy with the way their body looks (and for many, feels).

Internally, we're all very different. I'm often told I'm not very good at being a "girl" because I've never been "girly". I live in leggings or jeans with a t-shirt or hoody. I like trainers, hate heels. Don't wear any makeup ever (had to actually buy some for an awards do). I'm happiest on a windy cliff edge. I'm analytical, assertive, and don't put up with being solely responsible for all the domestic work. I didn't have the desperate "urge" to have children, but I do love my daughter with every fibre of my being.

I'm a person. I happen to biologically be female. The end.

Live as a person in the body you have, alter it as much as you want, many people do in ways other than the surgery you've been through. But, biologically you'll always be male because that's what your genetics are. If you need medical treatment they'll have to treat you as such. You can't "live in the female gender" because female is a biological sex and not a gender. Gender is a social construct and in reality it means nothing.

Absolutely this. Women have been cowed into pretending not to notice. We notice.

Of course we notice.

@Definitelynamechanged123 “ I was very surprised that so few trans people have Gender Recognition Certificates” me too op, I was also surprised when I learnt how few TW have actually had or ever plan to have surgery….I always thought that would be the goal of someone who is rejecting the body they were born into, have you any thoughts on why there is this dichotomy? ( I’m from an nhs mental background and used to working with people with body dysmorphia ,so genuinely interested in the differences with those who go through surgery and hormone treatments that can potentially be very damaging and cause long term health issues).

They wouldn't , its just more of the nonsense spouted to try and make it appear that supprting womens rights means we hate Transwomen.
TW doing my hair? Fine
Doing my smear? Not so much

Oh I understand it very well thanks, genuine empathy is usually expressed without the need to denigrate anyone, virtue signalling is seeking approval from someone by attempting to denigrate someone else whilst demonstrating your own perceived moral superiority.

HTH. 😀

@Definitelynamechanged123 - you have to enact every sexist, regressive stereotype of womanhood that actual women have been fighting to be free of for decades.

Perhaps to live as a woman would be to actually support women. To not be ok with women and even the word woman being wiped out. To understand we don’t like being called cis women. To understand we do not want to share women only spaces with biological males to name just a few things even then how could you live as a woman you are biologically male who has been chemically and / or surgically made to present as female.

I guess you can live in a more feminine way. But that is literally just a societally defined stereotype. And you can live with whatever manipulations have been done to your body, which make it appear less masculine. But it’s never going to be female. It never was. The legal ruling doesn’t change the facts, just spells them out.

completely agree and actually that makes me very sad for them. On the tv over the last few days many trans women have been brought out to discuss the issue and every single one was obviously born male, even the most ‘glam’. I genuinely believe they think they pass but not a single one does.

How do you “live as a female”? I’d like to check I’m doing it right, because I’m not sure I am. I rarely wear a skirt, heels or makeup, which, so I’ve heard, are things which count as “living as a female”.

Out of interest (genuinely interested, not trying to wind people up), now it is easier to restrict single sex spaces, that means that people may well now have to share a changing room with a trans man, so could be a muscular bearded person with a penis, but as they were born as and are biologically a woman they can’t go in the men’s. Would you have a problem sharing spaces with those people? And as 60% of young people transitioning now are female to male rather than the other way round, I think it will be reasonably likely.

We don't. I think the poster you are replying to was asking you what you felt it meant, seeing as you went to a lot of effort to get it.

(I do think they went about it in a rude way. In their defence, I've never yet seen a TW come on to mumsnet and give an answer that wasn't in the vein of what they posted.)

You can remove your genitals without claiming to be the opposite sex.

Because a very large majority of women don’t want them to, and we have a right to be heard? Why should the wants and needs of a majority be ignored to appease a very vocal minority? And yes, your assumptions are (partly) correct - women have been attacked and ‘perved’ by trans people unfortunately.

I do feel sorry for those who are transgender. There is a focus here on trans women but trans men are in the same situation, they feel they were born in a body that doesn't match their brain.

Some of the females in this thread haven't thought through the effect of this supreme court ruling.

Trans men were born into a biological female body. Many trans men look like biological males, but they are not biological males. They will be welcome in women's safe spaces, as a result of being biologically female at birth. However you will judge them based on how they look and abuse them for being in biological born female changing rooms, despite the fact they will be complying with current society which dictates there are only 2 types of people, those born in one of the two biological sexes.

Therefore you still won't be happy, because you are now going to be reporting people who are doing nothing wrong and using the correct born biological sex changing rooms, toilets, and safe spaces yet do not 'look' how you expect them to. Maybe we should stop judging people by how they look or appear and instead look at their actions and intent of their actions.