To wonder if no one on Mumsnet believes that trans women are women?

[StolenCookie]

I’ve been lurking on the site for months, enjoying AIBU and laughing at some of the posts.

But yesterday I commented on a topic regarding the language around trans women, and the views expressed were very extreme.

Is there anyone at all on Mumsnet who, like me, did not realise how anti-trans this site is? Does anyone believe, unreservedly, that trans women are women?

YABU - trans women are not women.
YANBU - I support trans rights

So if I said I feel like I am a difference race then you'd support it?

No I don’t think so, but the fact that this subject is complex and nuanced doesn’t negate the fact, for me, that trans women are women.

No I don’t think so, but the fact that this subject is complex and nuanced doesn’t negate the fact, for me, that trans women are Not biological women.
They're trans-woman obvious in looks and biological terms.

If someone tells me they don’t feel right in their body, I believe them

I expect we'd all believe that. Doesn't make them women.

Why are people here so determined to tell other people what they are and what they’re not? I genuinely don’t understand it. If someone tells me they identify a particular way, I believe them and support them. I really don’t understand why it causes so much rage for people.

No one is. Everyone (for the most part I may have missed someone who isn't) has said they support trans woman's right to identify that way and live their lives.

What we don't on a whole believe is that they are woman for the purposes of being sex category woman who can be in spaces for sex category women.

Would you honestly feel comfortable being in a female sex changing room with a man's penis out for show just because that person said they felt female? And I mean honestly?

We have a local trans woman and she absolute,y wouldn't dream of entering female spaces. She appreciates she has male anatomy even though she hates it.

She using places with changing villages for her own comfort and for respect of the woman she identifies with.

I disagree 🤷🏻‍♀️

I believe trans women are women, but there are complicated issues of protecting vulnerable women like those in refuges.

I absolutely don’t have to believe they belong in those spaces. I don’t believe they don’t belong there either, necessarily. I’ve already said so many times I don’t have a solution to these difficult issues!

But it still doesn’t stop me from believing whole heartedly that trans women are women.

Even posting this poll in good faith garners responses of “you’re clearly trying to be inflammatory”. I don’t believe I am, because if you support trans rights then you believe that they are women. It’s not possible to support them and at the same time tell them they are not what they identify as.

You know so little about the subject op that you don't know that many transwomen would never say TWAW and fully accept that they are not. It's only a certain section of the community that assert this.

If Peter sutcliffe told you he felt innocent, would you start a campaign to get him out of prison, and tell anyone who opposed you they were a bigot?

Trans women are not women. They are men who have transitioned to LOOK like women but they’ve gone through male puberty. Show me a trans woman who can have a baby and have periods and I’ll call them a woman.

Disclaimer, I recognise that some biological women are unable to conceive naturally.

So to summarise @StolenCookie being a woman or a man is a ‘feeling’ and if someone has that ‘feeling’ they are a man or a woman. You know you are a woman as you have a woman ‘feeling’ but you can’t describe what this feeling is or if it’s the same feeling any other women have. But you seem certain the ‘feeling’ you have is a woman one not a man one.

Then if someone tells you they have this ‘woman feeling’ then they are a woman but you don’t think they should be in a woman’s prison even though they are women. Why not? If they’re women with a woman feeling then you said they are a woman so why can’t they be in a women’s prison? It doesn’t make any sense.

But it still doesn’t stop me from believing whole heartedly that trans women are women.

Even though you can't say what a woman is?

Righty-ho.

So if they are women, why do they not belong in women’s spaces? You can’t have it both ways. Either they are women, and have full access to women’s spaces, or they are not women and cannot use those spaces. Which is it?

At what point does a man become a a woman? The second the idea enters his head? How has that idea of what being a woman is like been formed? Experiencing periods? Making pregnancy choices? Or wearing dresses? It's so bloody regressive.

Christ,@StolenCookie. I am able to tell a trans woman the she is not a woman because I AM A WOMAN. And a trans woman's desire to identify as a woman does not mean she gets to tell me what being a woman is and is not.

Trans women are not women. They may be men who have taken hormones and had surgery to mimic womanhood, but there is NO treatment, medical or surgical that can change a human being’s sex. You cannot change a human into a cat and you cannot change a human being’s biological sex.

A surgeon can make a surgical,opening and invert a man’s penis to create an artificial,passageway, but this is not a vagina. It cannot self clean or self lubricare, as a vagina can, and it cannot expand to allow something the size of a baby’s head through. Indeed, it cannot even remain patent (open) unless it is dilated using increasing sizes of dilator daily.

In many cases trans women are men with autogynaephilia - they get sexual pleasure out of ‘presenting’ as female, invading women’s spaces, trampling over their boundaries and making them uncomfortable.

Women have the right to safety and dignity, and our single SEX spaces are central to that. We deserve fairness and safety in sport. We deserve not to have violent male bodied sexual predators housed with us in prisons.

Trans rights activism and ideology is based on old fashioned notions of masculinity and femininity - if you like pink, make up, long hair, skirts, you MUST be a girl, but if you like wearing trousers, having short hair, playing sports and don’t want to wear make up, you MUST be a boy. You can’t be a boy who likes pink or wants to do a ‘caring’ job, or who plays with the toy kitchen, or who does crafts. You can’t be a girl who loves rugby and has short hair. It relies on toxic stereotypes, and nailing people into boxes from the 1940s, marked man and woman.

Children who are told they were born in the wrong body - because they don’t follow the rigid stereotypes for their biological sex - are put on a path to puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, mutilating surgeries, and a lifetime as patients. They are often left sterile, and incapable of sexual pleasure. Puberty blockers cause osteoporosis and retard the development of the adolescent brain - they actually damage the intellectual development of children.

So I refuse to believe trans women are women.

Oh - and sex is not ‘assigned at birth’ as the popular phrase in trans rights activism goes - it is decided soon after conception, and observed at birth - completely accurately, in all but the few cases of intersex disorders/disorders of sexual development.

TWAW as far as I’m concerned

Yawn. Go on then, let’s gave it. How is a transwoman a woman

What do you mean by "trans women are women" then? Because I understand it to mean "trans women are exactly the same as women who were 'born' female, and deserve exactly the same rights". If that's your understanding then there shouldn't be any 'tricky questions,' and your answer to something like "should trans women be allowed into women's refuges," or "should transwomen with penises who have been convicted of rape be placed in women's prisons" or "should trans women be allowed to compete in women's sport" or "I'm happy for a trans woman with beard and penis to share an open changing room with my teenage daughter and for her to be called transphobic if she objects" to be an automatic yes. Because you agree they are exactly the same as any other women and shouldn't be treated any differently.

Or does "trans women are women" mean something else to you?

And if you think you WEREN'T born in the right body, then who is determining what bodies we go into? And also, if a disabled person feels like they were also born in the wrong body (my partner, for example was only born with one hand) - how is it that a man who thinks he's a woman is born in the wrong body, but someone born with a birth defect has to cope and deal with the outcome as best they can? Does being born in the wrong body only affect your gender identity?

I'm also struggling a bit with this issue. Been a lurker for a long time, comment on the odd post where it's something I feel I can help with, generally like the forum. But then there is so much trans phobic nonsense that I find myself questioning if I should stay on here at all. And I think your post questions make perfect sense. I don't think you can truly support trans rights while saying they are not women.

I believe trans women are women, but there are complicated issues of protecting vulnerable women like those in refuges.

I absolutely don’t have to believe they belong in those spaces. I don’t believe they don’t belong there either, necessarily. I’ve already said so many times I don’t have a solution to these difficult issues!

But it still doesn’t stop me from believing whole heartedly that trans women are women.

You seem to be fighting the TWAW debate on behalf of those who believe that without actually aligning yourself fully to that side of the argument and not having actually researched what their argument is.

They actually absolutely believe that TW should access all woman's spaces as they are actually woman. They don't believe their is any complicated nuances or debate to be had.

And many of us here have pointed out to you that TW we know do not align themselves to this argument either. The fact they know they aren't biologically woman is what they struggle with most. Most also respect woman's rights wholeheartedly because they actually really do feel like they should be one.

truly support trans rights

Do you mean "rights" to enter the sex-segregated spaces intended for the opposite sex?

If not, which rights do you think we don't support?

Oh I; that case I must not support trans rights then. Can you point to any transphobia in particular or is it just women not agreeing with the op that’s transphobic? Ps. What is a woman?

So what do I do with someone who says they are a woman, is convicted of a serious offence, and expects to be placed into a women's prison even though they have male genitalia and a clearly male pattern of violent offending?? I have a duty of care to all the other women in that prison - why would the trans womans wishes trump their actual needs?

What's the word for adult human females then?

The problem is that people think that being a “woman” is a “fact”, defined by binary biological “sex” - which they also believe to be fixed, objective and factual. None of this is accurately represents reality. “Woman” is a social category. The biology of human bodies is inexorably complicated and the science of sex development still in contestation.
No trans woman would deny the physical reality of her body. However she may reject the objective truth of the social terms you insist on using to describe her (eg “man”). She knows herself better than you do- you do not get to tell her who she is.