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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To not care whether people say sex or gender.

999 replies

TeeJay1970 · 11/12/2018 21:48

Many people and organisations use these words interchangerbly. The meaning is always clear. I actually don't give a stuff if others disagree.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:05

Deciding who passes is a value judgement. One that you are making.

Very few of them do. There's no value attached to it. I don't care. You and the rest of the transgenderists are putting that spin on it, not me.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly · 15/12/2018 13:06

And I think the fact that you can always sex a body but can't sex a brain tells us a lot about where we should segregate by sex

so in matters of the mind, like education and careers it is unreasonable to treat the sexes differently

in matters of the body, like using the toilet, health care, times of vulnerability, it is reasonable to treat the sexes differently

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:09

Women who don't conform to 'feminine' stereotypes aren't 'manly' they are simply and solely women who choose not to conform to sex-based stereotypes.

This. They are as female as any other female. And not in any way male.

Sexual dimorphism is a thing, kids.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly · 15/12/2018 13:10

regarding passing

it was a very freeing moment when I stopped wondering about which men were OK to go in the ladies loos and realised that actually, no men at all should be in there. I don't care if they're a lovely, elderly, harmless transwoman. they're still just a man disregarding women's boundaries

passing is irrelevant

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:10

YY Bernard I feel exactly the same.

Weetabixandshreddies · 15/12/2018 13:10

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jellyfrizz · 15/12/2018 13:11

And interestingly most of these features develop after puberty.

Yes, because that is when people are fertile, which is after all what sex differences are all about - reproduction.

Given that some people are using puberty blockers I wonder how that will affect your ability to decide who passes or not based on these characteristics?

Yes, of course it will. Sex differences and the reason we are honed to read them is ultimately to do with reproduction. People who don't reach sexual maturity won't be able to reproduce.

PencilsInSpace · 15/12/2018 13:11

'passing' is just deception for the tiny few who can carry it off. There's my value judgment - I don't think deception is a good thing.

And as Ereshkigal says, giving children harmful drugs in the hope that they will be able to more effectively deceive people in adulthood is a shockingly bad idea. There you go, another value judgment.

Hyppolyta · 15/12/2018 13:12

Its an intresting question about puberty blockers.

It stands to reason a male whom doesnt go through male puberty will not develop many male features... however they also will not develop female skeletal features.

As far as I am aware no long term studies have yet been conducted, but it would be intresting to see what the results are.

Avegemitesandwich · 15/12/2018 13:12

Nobody can always tell a woman from a man not even you with your presumably foil proof real woman vision.

Funny, men over millenia have always managed to figure out who are the women and who are the men. They have always known exactly who to oppress.

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:12

Yes and that is something feminism supports. The demolishing of gender (sex role) stereotypes.

PencilsInSpace · 15/12/2018 13:12

passing is irrelevant

Yup.

Weetabixandshreddies · 15/12/2018 13:12

There's no value attached to it. I don't care
Really? Yet it is you and others like you who continually comment on it. Or refer to trans women as "men in a frock". Why would you say that if you don't care?

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:13

Link to where I used that phrase?

Avegemitesandwich · 15/12/2018 13:15

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jellyfrizz · 15/12/2018 13:15

If young boys fear spending the rest of their lives as looking too masculine and forever being judged by some people as not passing or looking like a "man in a frock" then I can see why they would welcome the ability to stop those features from developing.

Wouldn't it be better if no one batted an eyelid at men (& women) presenting however they wish?

Weetabixandshreddies · 15/12/2018 13:17

Wouldn't it be better if no one batted an eyelid at men (& women) presenting however they wish?

Yes it would. Yet views like this

A trans woman wearing a dress is, by very definition, a 'man in a frock'.

Suggest that we are a long way from that.

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:18

Weetabix puts some of them in a special category though and doesn't think you should be allowed to express that you know their biological sex.

jellyfrizz · 15/12/2018 13:18

But what is wrong with a man wearing a frock?

Hyppolyta · 15/12/2018 13:19

How else would you describe a transwoman?
Do you think people should be forced to pretend a male who puts a dress on is now a woman?

JacquesHammer · 15/12/2018 13:20

But what is wrong with a man wearing a frock?

Absolutely nothing until he starts demanding access to women only spaces

Ereshkigal · 15/12/2018 13:20

Suggest that we are a long way from that.

Why? I genuinely don't understand. Is it wrong to correctly perceive someone's sex as Avegemite is referring to? Why would that be? "Man" isn't an insult, or do you think it is?

Avegemitesandwich · 15/12/2018 13:20

Suggest that we are a long way from that.

What? How?

I don't care if men want to wear dresses. I do care if they say that they are women. Because they are not.

R0wantrees · 15/12/2018 13:20

That is very sad and in my view has echoes of black people bleaching their skin or straightening their hair.

Weetabixandshreddies
Really?

GlitterStick · 15/12/2018 13:21

Weetabix - or the comment upthread I actually angry faced at (I don't do angry faces, I surprised myself lol)
where the poster doesn't care where the women slipping the passing net go.
Seems I have a limit, and it's where actual presumably bio women don't give a shit about women unless it's "their type" of woman who passed, even the bio ones.
S'cuse me, but to me that's not feminism.
I'm for ALL women, not just those who I deem the right type.
The right for women to do what the hell they like, wear what they like, say what they like and not be told by men or other so called feminists what they should or shouldn't be doing.
No. Don't think so.