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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you believe Women can't have penises?

888 replies

loveyouradvice · 28/08/2018 14:36

Just that really.... inspired by the recent sticker campaign.... "Women can't have penises" and "Some women have penises"....

Simple question - simple answer.

Me - Yes, I believe women can't have penises.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
speakout · 28/08/2018 16:04

I am a woman and my OH lets me borrow his.

Not sure if that counts ..........

Ihavethepower · 28/08/2018 16:04

^How do you know it isn't true? I was mistaken for a boy once. If I'd told that shop assistant I was actually a girl, do you think she'd have told me it simply wasn't true? Would she have demanded proof?

And unless you're going to go around demanding proof every time you're pretty damn sure someone is trans, I think you're at some point just going to have to accept that "woman" and "man" have social meanings.^

A male presenting as female is really easy to spot most of the time and vice versa.

So you're suggesting that if I challenge a male bodied person with a beard for instance (see Alex widening the bandwith of gender etc) as they're going into female toilets or arriving to perform my smear and they then tell me they're a woman, I have to believe them?

Inertia · 28/08/2018 16:05

The Equality Act gives quite specific situations in which the protected characteristic of gender reassignment applies, with definitions couched in terms of sex / transsexual (as per the GRA). That doesn’t mean that everyone who declares themselves to be transgender is covered by gender reassignment as a protected characteristic. Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic, self-declared gender is not.

Aeroflotgirl · 28/08/2018 16:05

Biological women have to put up and shut up, get back into your box little lady, the Transwomen are talking.

Twotailed · 28/08/2018 16:06

I believe women can have penises. I believe men can have periods and give birth. I don’t believe biological sex is necessarily determinative of gender.

It took me a long time to reach this view. I used to feel very strongly the other way. But I’ve learned a lot and listened to a lot of people (from all sides of this debate) and done a lot of research and heard about a lot of experiences. And I’ve dismantled my own prejudices and questioned my own feelings and tried to really understand myself. And this is where I have come out - believing that genitals aren’t gender, and that sex is a related but not determinative concept.

Frequency · 28/08/2018 16:06

Any who thinks they have a greater knowledge of the sport, understanding of the effects of different physiological traits specific to that sport, funding for and access to the best available science on the subject and love for that sport and the people who do it; well anyone who thinks they have all of that more than the sports governing bodies is a jumped-up egotist who pisses all over the sportswomen they pretend to stand up for

If this was actually happening in practise, I'd agree with you but it is not.

You only have to watch this to see it is not. Or read www.cagepotato.com/after-being-tkod-by-fallon-fox-tamikka-brents-says-transgender-fighters-in-mma-just-isnt-fair/ this.

Those high schools were possibly beaten out of a scholarship to college. Tamikka Brents has repeatedly stated she felt her life was in danger during the fight with Fallon Fox.

trulybadlydeeply · 28/08/2018 16:06

OP, what s the AIBU? You want our help and guidance on whether you are BU, but is it whether you are BU in yo be beliefs on the subject, or are you worried that you are BU in publicly stating your beliefs?

AnEPleaseBob · 28/08/2018 16:07

It's not a matter of belief, belief is something you think is true without any proof.. It's a simple fact that women do not have penises, irrespective of anyones beliefs.

PyeWackets · 28/08/2018 16:07

A question for the people who think women do have willies.

Are the group formally know as women/adult human females, you know, them. Are they allowed a collective to describe themselves? Are they allowed any specific rights that take into account their biological reality??

ADastardlyThing · 28/08/2018 16:08

No, because as a pp has just said it's not something anyone can believe. It is a fact, women, adult human females, do not have penises.

thegardenfairy · 28/08/2018 16:08

A child with a penis is declared to be a boy (male child) at birth. A girl (female child) is the child born without a penis.

It's not rocket science

RatRolyPoly · 28/08/2018 16:08

A male presenting as female is really easy to spot most of the time and vice versa.

You'd never know all the times you've been wrong. Unless you've been following them into toilet cubicles just to check...

So you're suggesting that if I challenge a male bodied person with a beard for instance (see Alex widening the bandwith of gender etc) as they're going into female toilets or arriving to perform my smear and they then tell me they're a woman, I have to believe them?

Oh right, no biological woman has ever had facial hair?

But hey, if you don't want the bearded nurse doing your smear test it doesn't matter what gender they tell you they are - you are entitled and empowered to not submit to any medical procedure at any time for any reason at all. Book your smear in again for next week. Minor inconvenience, but hey. At least you didn't have to have the awkward, "so, are you a woman with a beard or a man pretending to be a woman?" conversation.

Tartyflette · 28/08/2018 16:09

Errm - I didn't say I knew better at all RRP -- I was trying to ascertain exactly what YOU thought.
But FWIW I have to wonder if various sports' governing bodies from the IOC down are any less likely than political and other organisations to be influenced by the highly vocal and seemingly well-funded trans lobby.

AnEPleaseBob · 28/08/2018 16:10

Oh goody, another anti-trans thread. How do you hide threads?

Why is it anti trans to say women do not have penises? Is it anti fish to state they don't have legs? Or is it a neutral statement of fact that implies no feelings either way about fish?

Postino · 28/08/2018 16:10

PyeWackets - the (young) women I know who are on board with this ideology wouldn't understand why that was necessary. They say they're feminists but they don't talk about women's oppression at all

RatRolyPoly · 28/08/2018 16:13

Those high schools were possibly beaten out of a scholarship to college. Tamikka Brents has repeatedly stated she felt her life was in danger during the fight with Fallon Fox.

US highschool sport is fucked. But they're a law unto themselves and nothing to do with either UK legislation or sports governing bodies.

Tamikka Betts does a sport that repeatedly puts her life in danger. I'd be surprised if she wasn't at least a little bit worried in every single fight that she ended up losing. Less so in the fights she won, but in those cases you might want to ask the people she beat how they felt.

RatRolyPoly · 28/08/2018 16:15

But FWIW I have to wonder if various sports' governing bodies from the IOC down are any less likely than political and other organisations to be influenced by the highly vocal and seemingly well-funded trans lobby.

Know much about them do you? Well, if you can't disagree with them simply discredit them. On the basis of... well... nothing.

Ihavethepower · 28/08/2018 16:15

Any who thinks they have a greater knowledge of the sport, understanding of the effects of different physiological traits specific to that sport, funding for and access to the best available science on the subject and love for that sport and the people who do it; well anyone who thinks they have all of that more than the sports governing bodies is a jumped-up egotist who pisses all over the sportswomen they pretend to stand up for

I think all female weightlifters will be very relieved that Laurel Hubbard's recent injury is likely to be career ending. Since they don't stand a fucking chance against her given her obvious advantages her male sex gives her and who had previously made records weightlifting as a man.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 28/08/2018 16:16

i don’t believe biological sex is necessarily determinative of gender.

Same here

I don't believe in gender but I think people should present however they wish...the rest is due to personality and societal pressure

AnEPleaseBob · 28/08/2018 16:17

i don’t believe biological sex is necessarily determinative of gender

But do you believe that biological sex is dertminative of SEX, which is the point?

BertrandRussell · 28/08/2018 16:17

I really think sport is an excellent proxy for this debate. The fact is that if a reasonably sporty teenage boy-my ds for example, there or thereabouts at sports day in any event he competes in, decided to self ID as a girl he would win every event he entered. Can someone explain to me how that would be fair? Somebody tried once by saying "Of course it would be fair-she's a girl" which is a bit too circular for my liking.

RatRolyPoly · 28/08/2018 16:17

Since they don't stand a fucking chance against her given her obvious advantages her male sex gives her and who had previously made records weightlifting as a man.

Write to the governing body. Tell them you understand the physiological impact in weightlifting of having been born male better than them and their scientists do. Dare you.

CircleofWillis · 28/08/2018 16:18

Rufus I agree with you but would put it the other way round. I think people should present however they wish because I don't believe in gender.

RatRolyPoly · 28/08/2018 16:19

Bertrand school sport is an exception. Clearly. As no-one is able to impose any conditions such as testosterone levels on schoolchildren.

Sport is a good proxy for this debate. But not school sport.

CircleofWillis · 28/08/2018 16:19

Or rather I don't believe that gender is innate, but a social construct.