to think Mumsnet should delete posts in which women are called cis

[violetsarentblue]

I (and I imagine quite a lot of women on here) are fed up with being referred to as cis. I find the term deeply insulting.
I'm a woman and prefer to be addressed as a 'woman', not a cis woman.

I noticed MN are quick to delete posts where transgender people are called 'he' instead of 'she', because that group of people find the term insulting and MN don't want to offend.

Generally we delete posts in which people persistently refuse to refer to people by the pronoun (he/she; him/her) by which they’ve asked to be referred, out of respect for that individual’s wishes.

Please - could we have the same depth of consideration for our wishes?

Thank you.

So any born woman who has a negative reaction to a male-bodied individual in a space where women are naked is transphobic? Is that your conclusion?

I linked upthread to a woman phobic website, with threats from transactivists which suggested TERFs should die in a fire etc.

I don't think there have been many, if any, instances when such threats have come from born women to trans women.

Here it is again:

terfisaslur.com

Including any teenage girl who doesn't want to be naked in a changing room with a male-bodied 17 year old?

And what do you think biological sex IS, if you think it can be changed by surgery?

It's not phobic to say XY cells can't be made into XX.

There is a long way to go until people fully accept and understand transgender issues.

Do you think if you explain at them for long enough they'll all admit how wrong and transphobic they've been and commence referring to themselves as "cis" from that point on?

There is a long way to go until people fully* accept and understand transgender issues.*

We understand the issues, we just don't agree with them.

From my husband: when will transgender women understand that born women have issues they are not involved in?
And also from my husband can we get this sorted quickly he doesn't like how angry these discussions get me.

I have compassion for people with Trans issues and will always respect people's wishes about what they want to be referred to as but nothing will ever make me think there is no difference between someone born a woman and someone who has transitioned.

Transgender issues ?

This is the part I don't get. What is a tran issue ? What is a trans woman ? A man cross dressing ? A man who wants to be able to be woman one day and man the next ? A transsexual who needs to have his male anatomy removed because of extreme distress ? A man who proclaims to be a woman but has no intention or desire to have his penis removed ? A white trans woman claiming her odds of being killed are higher than mine when that simply isn't true ? Men not being allowed to appropriate issues that only affect women ?

The more I read and talk to members of the trans community, it's becoming obvious to me that the loudest voices are not transsexuals, who seem to be older, committed to surgery and willing to listen to women but that the hatred and bile and insistence on browbeating women and denying their experiences, comes from the ones who are playing gender identity games. They are the ones who react with self entitled, opinionated, diatribes and threats. A female penis ? Believing they menstruate ? Believing that their feelings as an individual outweigh the greater good of society ? It's not trans phobic to refuse to believe their convoluted twitterings or to allow their abuse of social media to drown out other voices.

The reason the Gender Recognition Act passed without much fanfare was because there was a genuine need to deal with the very real issues and distress facing transsexuals. It wasn't to protect the rights of those with fetishes, over inflated egos, or misogynists. The real harm being done to the trans community is coming from within, followed closely by male violence. I, as a woman, do them no harm but there's a line that's been crossed in past years and it's about time that they were called out on it.

Thank you, Blistory.

Not sure if your question was aimed at me Empress, but I never said that I agree that the term FGM should be changed.

But that's the logical extensions of your insistence that the sex of 'female' applies to anyone who identifies with the gender of 'woman'.

One thing I'm always interested in is that the all-righteous, super-liberal (and I say this as a liberal myself) Tumblr people will jump on anything they see as cultural appropriation. Use a dreamcatcher? Cultural appropriation. Eating curry? Cultural appropriation. Tribal tattoo? Cultural appropriation.

And yet there is absolutely nothing wrong with a man putting on a skirt and a wig and declaring "I am a woman"?? Surely that is cultural appropriation at its finest?

But of course, because we're happy with the vaginas we were born with, Tumblr doesn't give a shit about us. We don't really matter.

I agree with Blistory.

jorah not only are you absolutely right, it is the height of bigotry and hatred to even raise an eyebrow that a man declaring himself to be a woman might not be a woman, let alone that he is appropriating anything.

Exactly abbie

Some issues that I have faced because I was born female are struggling with the awareness that my developing body attracted the attention of many men and hating that, starting my periods that were very painful when I was young and often made me feel very ill, feeling embarrassed by my ridiculously large boobs on my skinny body and having to go to special shops to buy my bra's, period pain, period late worry of pregnancy, being pregnant and not wanting to be, having a termination, taking birth control pills that made me so ill I ended up in hospital, finding myself pregnant and being rejected and facing pregnancy and being a single parent alone, pregnancy , traumatic childbirth, sore boobs when bf, not producing enough milk and feeling guilty and now shall soon be facing peri menopausal symptoms that quite frankly I am dreading the list goes on and I haven't bothered adding sexualisation from a young age, sexual harassment and all that goes with it all that is listed above only a female can experience

So what is it that I have in common with a trans woman ? Listed above they can't possible experience it's impossible and we know why

YY Blistory! Great post.

why isn't there this same rush to define male anatomy and discussion of men's issues as trans phobic? Are there trans men out there who find discussions of prostate cancer and penises (Penii?) so triggering that they would like men to redefine their normal physiology & sexual organs with an inaccurate and denigrating term instead (trying and failing to think of an equivalent for the 'front hole' euphemism here- spunktrumpet? Flesh appendage?)

Or is this just the same thing as usual, women's language, bodies, experiences being policed, women's energy & sexuality being defined by and for men? Perhaps the they don't identify as men but the gendered, socialised and learned masculine behaviour seems exactly the same....

we have a long way to go to fully understand trans issues and rights

I have zero interest in trans issues. They bore me rigid tbh

Im only interested in so far as 'trans rights' infr8nge on womens spaces/servicez/definition/privacy etc

No amount of listening to theur tales of woe, is going to make me think they have anything in common with women. Its not going to make me think they should take priority over women. And its certainly never going to convince me they are women

In fact, so far, listening to trans-voices has just made me cross

Thank you Blistory.

I've read the whole thread. I think I must be leading a charmed life. I haven't had any of these experiences of trans women trying to silence me, 'take over' particular spaces, have sex with me without my enthusiastic agreement, or anything else. I've seen some crap online, but I don't necessarily believe that people are always who they say they are online. I'm willing to believe that some trans women are arseholes, but I really haven't met anyone who behaves this way.

I'm a feminist. My sexual orientation varies according to the season. I was assigned female sex at birth without anyone checking my chromosomes. I don't care if people call me cis even though I don't 'feel' cis. I don't 'feel' like a woman - or like a man (other people's assumptions can go either way). I don't believe gender is binary, but I do think people perform gender (I love Judith Butler). I think the most interesting discussions about trans women and sexual identity are currently to be found among sex workers.

Call me Cis. Call me Ishmael. Bloody hell. I'm off to kill a whale go to bed.

adjustable; i have worked for 3 different companies where there were TW using our toilets/showers.

The most difficult WS a man who transitioned whilst working with us. So for 6 years we had known him as John. A quiet man, that all the women in the office avoided as he stared at your tots all the time and made you uncomfortable. Then one Monday he came in wearing a dress and badly applied makeup, changed his name to Joan and started using the ladies toilets

But, as ever, it is going to be the most disadvantaged women that feel it when women's rights are eroded. Like those in prison, forced to share with men

In 2013 a feminist conference, which had FGM on the Agenda was cancelled after pressure from trans activists, as they were not included

If I have learnt one thing from this thread it's that there needs to be a lot more debate around these issues. I am really surprised about the lack of understanding and compassion around trans issues on what is usually quite an enlightened forum.

There certainly does need to be more debate. Until I had my consciousness raised by various threads on MN I would have said I was a LibFem and very sympathetic to trans issues.

I've said here before, I'm in my 60s and had happily passed the feminist baton on to the next generations - but they are not holding it high and carrying it forward. They are allowing it to be extinguished by people with penises. Women fought so hard for generations for liberation and freedom and it seems we are now expected to allow men to dictate to us what feminism is and what women are.

Well they can't.

I haven't had experience of transwomen trying to silence me either. There probably aren't that many of them. It is the people who who consult schools, hospitals, universities, social services, the public sector generally, trade and industry bodies and who provide human rights and equality training that I worry about. There are far more of them, and they can make one's life very difficult.

If it is already the case that stating that a transwoman is biologically male is "transphobic" I suspect things are only going to get worse.

A phobia is of course something irrational. Branding someone "transphobic" is of course the perfect way of shutting down a debate by implicitly branding all your opponents as irrational and bigoted.

adjustable there are lots of women who like to post on threads discussing feminism to say they have never experienced discrimination, make violence etc and what are all these feminists on about. It's not much of a contribution, is it?