AIBU to say that I am a woman, not a 'non-man' 'non-trans woman' or 'cis women'

[R0wantrees]

I was born female.

I started having periods aged 11.

I started IVF in my late 30s and was diagnosed with gyny cancer.

As a result of the surgery (total hysterectomy) which no doubt saved my life, I have no uterus, cervix or ovaries and am childless but am fortunate to be well. My Gyny cancer was unusually caught at an early stage.

I know these to be uniquely female experiences and as an adult human female, I am a woman.

However, some activists with the Green Party have sought to use 'non-men' as a descriptor.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/feminists-mock-green-party-young-womens-invite-to-non-men-a6987061.html

There has been assertions on Mumsnet and elsewhere to use the descriptor 'non-trans woman'
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3289890-great-piece-by-academic-kathleen-stock-mentions-mn

and not using the descriptor 'cis woman' is deemed by some to be transphobic.

Sometimes women have to say 'No!'
I think words matter
I think sex matters

In general life it doesn't matter if someone is male or female. We are all humans, but as humans, as mammals, we are split between male and female, with a tiny number of anomalies.

Sex matters a great deal when it comes to health, medication, safety etc.
Erasing sex won't affect men much because Man is already the standard to which humans are measured.
It will very much hurt women and girls in so many areas.

In 35 years I have never defined myself as “cis” and I have no intention whatsoever of starting now. I am a woman. That sentence will never stop being true.

A transwoman is a transwoman and biologically male.
I am female. I have suffered because of this. I will not allow anybody to identify me as a non man, as cis, non trans etc etc. fuck right off.
I am a woman
Something transwomen can never be, they can emulate it and I will use their preferred pronouns and I'll fight for their rights as far as they do not encroach on mine and the rights of women as a whole.
"We don't want to be in men's spaces! Men are scary and violent! Let us come into your spaces, penises (Penii?) and all! Wait, why don't you like that? Men are scary and violent! Protect us by having penises in your space, because we don't want to be in spaces with penises!!!"

YANBU.

I'm with JaneR0chester. For the last few years I've considered myself, if not an active trans rights activist then certainly very sympathetic to their cause and very happy to have a trans woman in my dance class (she was lovely, shame she moved away). The way things are going now, though, is not where I foresaw.

I think it was Hadley Freeman who said that while nobody wants to be on the wrong side of history, you'll never be on the right side of history by shouting women down.

I want everyone to feel free to express themselves however they wish to too cunningartificer. Men and women in dresses or trousers, fine. Have sex with whomever you please if consensual. I don't care.

The trouble with that is that for safety's sake society has segregated certain areas and sports by sex. Men are stronger, faster, more violent and able to get women pregnant. That doesn't change if they wear dresses and feel feminine.

I'm certainly not a non-man. Nor am I cis. I'm not going to be defined as 'not a man who identifies as a woman'. Ffs.

How many men can you see being asked to identify as 'not a woman who identifies as a man'?

In terms of of 'transwomen and women' as descriptors, that is now considered verging on transphobia. It has to be 'women and women who do not necessarily meet the same biological standard'.

And this really isn't about accommodating men who have gender dysphoria and want to identify as female to alleviate the symptoms.

The mantra transwomen are women is designed so that domineering man can say it and force women to comply with their demands.

Hence the targeting of absolutely anything with the word woman in it, however irrelevant to them it is. Like cancer relief's 'people with a cervix', bra fitting services for pubescent girls, midwife forums, lesbian restaurants, AWS, etc.

Wireless Festival has just decided they will be redressing the balance of their predominantly male lineups, by having all female lineups.

It will be targeted, I guarantee.

Which is why it is often absolutely vital to make a distinction between the two sexes.. There are only two, not four.

Christ on a bike. So we're non men now are we?

Cis women, non men, non people. Why don't we all just fuck off and disappear then and make everyone happy. Now we're so bloody unimportant that, if some people have their way, we won't even have a noun to describe what we are.

I see it's the Green Party, what a surprise. Bunch of sodding loons.

The non-men thing (never mind the hardening of gender stereotypes that seems to accompany all this) is just so very old-fashioned.

It's the world G Greer was describing in The Female Eunuch in the early 70s. That was all about 'men and non-men', describing women viewed and sweetly behaving as some odd, malleable 'non-man other' rather than as 'women'.

'Non-men' takes me straight to that imagery and a 50s-60s Mad Men or Stepford Wives world of important-men-in-suits and pinny-wearing, doily-straightening girly, servile, politically peripheral women.

In this context, does 'woke' mean 'fell asleep in the 1950s and just woken up?' Or 'just woken up to the real possibility of masculine power being levelled into equal-access oblivion'?

God why is all this made so fucking difficult?
Do you have a penis? Yes- go straight to MAN.

Do you have a vagina? Yes - go straight to WOMAN.

I find it interesting that women who were born that way and stay that way are expected to call themselves a "cis woman", however I have never yet seen any reference to men born that way and staying that way having to refer to themselves as a "cis man" rather than just a man.

By the way, not that it will affect the momentum this thread has taken on, but it’s worth noting for the sake of accuracy that the Green Party ad specifically didn’t use the terms cis-woman or trans woman. It used women (women) and non-man (people who no longer identify as men). So it looks as though they were trying to avoid the very problem that had arisen.

And I do dislike the assumption that all trans women are desperate to get into women’s spaces so that they can assault them with their dangerous penises. In most areas of life I don’t feel the need to be ‘segregated ‘ from men thanks very much. Division in sport is not all because of safety for heaven’s sake! The trans women I have known are trying to escape from the violent ideology of masculinity and have been considerably more gentle than many women I have encountered.

I’m a woman whose gender matches the one she was assigned at birth. I’m a cis woman. No more or less a woman than trans women.

What is a cis?
Am I one?

The trans/cis v autistic/neurotypical is a false analogy, and actually a bit offensive to those of us on the spectrum.

Autistic and allistic/neurotypical (which essentially means ‘normal’ - some of us autistic people are OK with that!) are descriptors of a person’s neurotype. They belong to the super-category ‘human brain layouts as currently understood by science’.

What super-category do both trans and ‘cis’ women belong to, and what are its defining characteristics, that both include biologically male trans women, and biological females who don’t experience gendered feelings?

Just as a wheel of cheese doesn’t fit inside the super-category ‘neurotypes’, males don’t fit within the super-category ‘women’ - to which black women, white women, lesbian women, straight women, etc all belong.

I’m a woman whose gender matches the one she was assigned at birth. I’m a cis woman. No more or less a woman than trans women.

Cunning, not sure anyone's ever made the assumption that all trans women are desperate to get into women's spaces to assault them .

The fact is, there is enough evidence of transwomen being perpetrators of sexual crime for women to be wary. There is evidence that taking away women's safe spaces opens up more opportunities to voyeurism and assault. Should we ignore this so we don't hurt someone's feelings?
What about women's feelings?
What about women who have already been the victims of sexual and domestic violence? Are they allowed to feel wary of male bodied people in their spaces?

I do understand that many transwomen are wanting to escape male violence ideology, but forcing themselves into women's spaces, which are there for the same reason, is not the answer. Campaign for another space.

God, you people. So full of hate.

I'm no a non-man, we don't go around defining things by what they are not! How exhausting.

@R0wantrees I am so sorry to hear of your experiences, glad you are healthy and wish you all the best.

”I’m a woman whose gender matches the one she was assigned at birth. I’m a cis woman.”

Aha, perhaps that’s why I’m ‘just’ a woman rather than a cis woman. You see I wasn’t assigned a gender at birth. The medical professionals observed what sex I was and wrote it down. And because that can’t be changed, there’s no need for anything to “match” anything else. It just is.

”I’m a woman whose gender matches the one she was assigned at birth. I’m a cis woman.”

Aha, perhaps that’s why I’m ‘just’ a woman rather than a cis woman. You see I wasn’t assigned a gender at birth. The medical professionals observed what sex I was and wrote it down. And because that can’t be changed, there’s no need for anything to “match” anything else. It just is.

I'm a woman whose gender doesn't match the stereotypes little boxes we're expected to fit in.
What does that make me?
I'm not trans.

I have a uterus, a vagina, ovaries etc. Yet I wear men's clothes, my hair is short, I wear no makeup.
Biology dictates I am female, something I wasn't happy about until I passed puberty.
Gender is a weird, regressive belief system that I do not, and will not, buy into.

Facts == hate.

Typical NHS postcode lottery - assigning genders in some areas and identifying sexes in others, by the look of it.