WIBU to ask MNers who think Trans Women are 'Chicks With Dicks' to ...

[KKCupCakes]

Take a look at this article about supporting families of Transgender people by the Gires.org.uk Website to see why that view is so utterly incorrect and harmful?
www.gires.org.uk/assets/supporting-families.pdf

Yes, iama I would LOVE to see women getting some actual advantage from this. I wonder if anyone will try it?

Rhonda don't let it do your nut in. Its very simple really. We don't need to understand and/or empathise. We really dont

This whole situation is becoming ludicrous, if not downright insulting to just about everyone. I could have been described in the past as a pregnant individual but what am I currently? A vaginal individual? Is DH a penile individual?

iam - that is an interesting point. I really can't imagine how the legislature will get around that conundrum.

I'm all for inclusive language, even if it does end up being a bit clunky - better that than disadvantaging someone - but trying to re-define standard terms in such a muddled way helps no-one.

WandaFuca, I wondered myself. I think instead of "vaginal individual" or "ex-pregnant individual" I shall go for "incubator in recess/ retired incubator" and dh can be "impregnator in recess/ retired impregnator"

Its really cross making though, that we have perfectly good and universally accepted words; which are being misappropriated

What I don't understand though is that as a MTF trans person, if you really and truly, wanted to be a woman, felt like a woman, thought like a woman, wanted a woman's body, lived your life AS A WOMAN....

...then why wouldn't you want to be called a 'woman'??!! Why the need to subdivide in Cis woman and trans woman? Why would you want to define yourself as something else and not just 'woman'?!

Not trying to be thick or goady. I genuinely don't get it

Wanda, I have occasionally been described as 'hormonal'

Maybe that would be a good catch-all?

Unfortunately the heightened emotions around this tend to generate more heat than light and just make the conflicts worse.
Sometimes when you run into someone whose worldview is upside down and inside out but tries to tell you that you are in the wrong and must change the way you see yourself and accept the way someone else chooses to describe you and seems to think you have a moral obligation to accommodate your view, it behoves those who really are right to say so in no uncertain fashion and to keep on saying it. There has been an enormous amount of light generated here, in fearless and frank fashion -- it is not acceptable any more for women to question the motives or the actions or anything else associated with transwomen (sic). Some people can't handle the truth.

Howtorebuild asked upthread if women are the victims of narcissistic rage in this brave new 'reality' that is being foisted upon us, and it is my opinion that this is exactly what we are facing, not just on threads like this but in general, in this effort by transwomen (sic) to define themselves as 'other than men so must be women'.

MagickPants eloquently and with absolute accuracy described what is happening, how we ended up not only with homophobia and sexism and all the rest of the toxic environment created by men, but also what transwomen (sic) are trying to achieve: Masculinity needs femininity against which to define itself. It's a key part of masculine men, how they stand vis a vis women. It can't be completed in a male vacuum. Women are required for the project of masculinity, of successful self definition as a masculine man, and for the recognition of this by society. Women are barely understood as human but are instrumental to this end. It seems to me that transwomen (sic) are using women as a means of defining their relationship to masculinity as they understand it. Womanhood/femininity in its external aspects is necessary in order for transwomen (sic) to define themselves as non-masculine men, which is what they are.

"Imagine making the comments you are making about transgender people about any other section of society"

Overweight people have to put up with shitty comments all the time.

There are also shitloads of tv programmes made that demonize people for being poor.

Not to mention all the sections of society that get called names they do not want to be called.

Violence against women is completely irrelevant to transgender issues.

Discuss, with reference to the fact that transwomen want to be accepted as women bonus points for not turning yourself into a pretzel

And more to the point, accepted as women in women's spaces.

The more I read the more I am gobsmacked by the narcissism.

And, violence against trans women is entirely irrelevant to women's issues

Trans women would prefer to be called women I think (mostly) but they are not the same as women so they need the prefix trans for accuracy. It's the insistence on adding the prefix cis which is objectionable. Trans woman and woman are two accurate categories already.

Trans woman and woman are two accurate categories already.

I did suggest that way upthread

It's a bit like the term "gay man". It doesn't need men to be redefined as "straight men" in order to be a valid description for those who choose it.

What do we think about sports events? Birth gender to count? I met someone on a running coach course who I thought had had a sex change - very male face and features and physicality.

On the assumption that she had had a sex change: she runs races in the female category. But she has the body and strength of a man. I'm not sure if I think it's fair. But I don't know if it's fair for her to have to run as a man. She's not an elite athlete, it doesn't matter (though she does win the odd prize at local races). But would it matter if she beat Paula Radcliffe's marathon record?

A lot of sports wont let you compete in your 'identity' group at pro level. Someone did mention the iranian womens team on the other thread though (i think. I will look stupid if it is this one!!) - of which 8 of the team were born men

Violence against women is completely irrelevant to transgender issues.

Discuss, with reference to the fact that transwomen want to be accepted as women

Just wanted to post this again to emphasise how contradictory it is.

"Transwomen are women."
But violence against women is completely irrelevant to transgender issues ??????

Look, I've always known that MtF transgender people experience higher than "normal" harassment, violence, and hate crimes.

These are usually/mostly (always) perpetrated by men. And they derive from the oppressive and sexist model of masculinity internalised by these men perpetrating hate crimes against transwomen. I'd go so far to suggest that male violence against transwomen is stemming fom their homophobia.

But homophobia is at base, at least in part, misogyny I think the oppressive illogic goes like this:

These are men who have sex with men.
But men don't have sex with men. They have sex with women.
Therefore men who have sex with men must really be like women/ be women.
Women are lesser beings. They are not human like men. They are not-Men.

Therefore men who have sex with men are really not-Men. They're women. But they're weird and wrong because they are men. But they are rejecting what real-Men should want to do.

I suspect that's what's going on. So yes, transwomen are subjected to violence.

But it is violence which stems from our misogynist culture, and the structural oppression of women

Transwomen, of all people, should understand this. The transwomen I know (colleagues) understand this. They are interested in feminism; they see why it's important to them. I'm not sure why other transwomen don't get this.

I think there's a huge problem in the making for sports. The new gender orthodoxy could either result in major disadvantage for double x women, or require very detailed respecification of categories along the lines of the Paralympics. You only have to look at the grossly unreasonable things that have been done over the years to gain sporting success (including gender fraud by the Eastern Bloc) to see that there are people who will do whatever it takes to win.

I've always refused to refer to myself or anyone else as cis, but until now I've occasionally referred to myself as "non trans" or said when hectored online in forums by transactivists and their allies and told that I was prejudiced for not accepting being called cis, that I was happy with being called non trans as an alternative to cis (which obviously still wasn't good enough for those people). I decided last week that fuck that, I'm not doing that any more. They are trans women, I am a woman. There's a considerable difference. That's really all there is to it.

For the record, UK Sport was granted exemption from the Gender Recognition Bill.

On the assumption that she had had a sex change that is QUITE an assumption!!

' no, they are just subject to another kind of violence. People attack them for being trans. '

I don't know but this statement from Siani has me thinking just how misunderstood this situation is.

Why do people think transwoman are attacked for being trans... Um maybe.. It's because they are men who want to be / feel they are woman. And woman are despised by many men, and routinely (1 in 3, i think) beaten up we won't even go into emotional and financial abuse.

Unfortunately their previous male privilege means they don't get the fact that WOMEN ARE ABUSED. Welcome to womanhood!

We, as woman, are not prepared to stand by and watch while already vulnerable woman are put into unacceptable situation, because our apparent 'cis' privilege (I loathe that word) means, lucky us, we know whats it's like to be sexually and physically abused, often from childhood. Most of us grew up in the 70's and 80's when sexual abuse was rife. Yay for cis privilege!! As long as men have a working penis there IS is greater risk to woman (of course they are also physically stronger) and should not be allowed in womens spaces.

So go ahead, call yourselves woman, put away your male privilege and fight for the causes of woman. Don't create your own little world, picking out the bits you like and changing the bits you don't. That is the ipitomy of Male privilege. You cannot have it all. That is what men do.

Masculinity needs femininity against which to define itself.

I know this was posted on Sunday; I'm still catching up. Just wanted to thank Magick for this incredibly astute post.