To find this unreasonable and offensive to women or is it just me?

[Toorahtoorahaye]

Saw this on twitter and this rhetoric seems to be spreading. So is it just me or are others concerned with this? How does this help women and girls, especially with the turn this has taken in the US recently.

Transmen claim that they are discriminated against when people don't accept them as male.

Transmen claim that they are discriminated against when people don't accept them as female.

See the problem?

It's easy to hijack because it is fundamentally flawed cognitive dissonance in the extreme, and feminism will continue to face issues like this until either there is a schism, or feminism dies as an idea, which it is already doing for some people

Anyone who has actually read Crenshaw's original work on intersectionality will know this is ignorant bollocks. If that's too hard try her TED talks.

If only everyone could state the facts as clearly as you Fairenuff.

Well I personally use male and female to denote biological sex not gender, so my own answer would be no. But they are men.

Thank you for the precise reply. I think I'm right in understanding that you use male/female to denote biological sex and man/woman to denote gender stereotypes?

I have a number of problems with this (and with similar attempts to change language), much more fundamental than the ones you suggest:

1. It's arrogant. The vast majority of the population (including those who are gender non-conforming) use the words man and woman the way they have always been used. We still need a word for women and they will still be women whatever clothes or makeup they wear.

1. It's confusing. It's perfectly reasonable to describe a transman as a man in most contexts but we need to be able to make the distinction where it matters (such as pregnancy). If the word man has no meaning then so does the word transman.

1. It erases women. Women are being oppressed because of the fact they are women, diluting that discussion to people makes it much harder to define the problems precisely. Remember that we are not just talking about one tweet, but a constant drip of demands that women budge up and be 'inclusive'.

1. It fuels transphobia. Focusing on making people say things which aren't true does not grant new rights, it creates division.

KoalaTea, I wasn't assigned female at birth, I was observed as female at birth. The only instance where sex is assigned is where people are born with a DSD.

@JAPAB Another question occurs to me, if you wouldn't mind:

Well I personally use male and female to denote biological sex not gender, so my own answer would be no. But they are men.

There are more hard line Genderists than you (perhaps McKinnonites might be the term) who would say that your position is Transphobic. That biological sex cannot meaningfully be defined and all that matters (in prisons, in sports, in changing rooms) is stated gender identity.

What are your thoughts on this position? At what point (if not the posts in the OP) does this become erasure of women's rights?

4. It fuels transphobia. Focusing on making people say things which aren't true does not grant new rights, it creates division.

That's an interesting one. I am noticing time and time again that the more people are forced into listening to an extreme left liberal line, the more they see the contradictions, and dishonest people taking advantage - and the more they rebel. Yes I agree that forcing us to say things which everyone knows are simply not true will hurt the very people they're attempting to protect.

would argue that perhaps if its going to get this silly, the term 'assigned female at birth' or 'those with female biology' might be better... its inclusive of Women and Transmen.

I used to think that but female has been appropriated too, or there is an attempt to. Some TW say they are actually female though, it’s officially on their birth certificate, passport etc and why a penis is actually a female body part if it’s on a TW.

@Fairenuff Quite the paradox indeed.

Paris Lees and other TRAs have "adult human female" as their Twitter bio.

Posted the previous in error and have asked for it to be deleted.

all people who can get pregnant

Pretty much part of the definition of an adult female human, isn’t it?

“can” as in “the potential to”

It's the literal definition of female: of the sex that can produce ova. Can as in the only sex that can.

It's bloody ridiculous. The lot of it.

Gender is a social construct made up by the patriarchy to keep women in their place. Transgenderism is playing right into this sexist bullshit and reinforcing that women are somehow less than men.

Fuck off with that bullshit.

Repeat after me.
Transwomen are men.
Only women can get pregnant
Cis is an offensive slur used by idiots who think they're woke.

4. It fuels transphobia.

This. I had never in my life been opposed to anyone who had transitioned male->female (and I have known a fair number) any more than I was opposed to homosexuals (ditto) until a lot of people with beards and penises started to claim to be trans and thus women really, and threaten women with violence for daring to suggest that women are women not men, and men are men not women.

I think a lot of rather nasty little boys (of whatever age) have done my friends who are transsexuals no favours whatever.

I think NHS Scotland have struck the right balance. All of their literature about breast screening refers to women, however they have additional info easily accessible about screening for trans people.

www.nhsinform.scot/healthy-living/screening/screening-information-for-the-transgender-community#breast-screening

I can't even believe posters like that on twitter are genuine or genuinely believe what they're posting. It seems obviously designed to offend women and provoke anger, posted by a very nasty mysogynist

donquixotedelamancha I am a little confused by your post. You say that you have a problem with my using one set of terms for biological sex, and another for gender, and then go on to give reasons why you have a problem with this.

Yet your reasons pretty much revolve around the need to be able to, in some contexts, refer to someone's biological sex. Which those that take my approach are not precluding. Amd even those people who do want to use male/female/men/women all for gender, well with them you can refer to the XX or XY-chromosomed when needed.

But identity is important to people, and not the sort of thing someone can just change because you think there would be advantages in doing so. You can argue all you want that people should see their nationality as being wherever they were born, but to the patriotic Welshman whose mother happened to be in Scotland at the time of his birth, well he is not going to just say fair enough I'll stop being Welsh I'll be Scottish if you think that makes analysing certain stats or social phenomena more convenient for you.

Also, point 4 is interesting. What lies are you talking about? Thinking that a current definition or conceptualisation is wrong and wanting people to alter it is not about truth and lies. I mean, if someone claimed that asking to redefine marriage away from 'one man one woman'' to 'two persons' is asking people to accept "lies" wouldn't that imply that there is some sort of objective dictionary. To my mind truth amd lies are for objective stats, not what people think concepts mean.

"Objective facts", not "objective stats"

YANBU world gone mad

think NHS Scotland have struck the right balance. All of their literature about breast screening refers to women, however they have additional info easily accessible about screening for trans people.

Yes, that is the approach Cancer Research UK appear to have reverted to, thankfully.