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

I most definitely do not have a gender identity. Shall we do an AIBU poll on that too?

That’s just rude.
and I know exactly what they mean, thanks.

CAIS individuals are "assigned" female at birth because they have a female phenotype.

If chromosome tests were done at birth as standard (I'm not advocating for this BTW) then we would have the full picture.

This does not mean they are genetically or biologically female, but female by necessity, as they cannot ever BE male in any true sense. They have a much better chance of living as a woman.

I'm not sure your argument is actually saying what you think it is.

Plus - I don't have a gender identity, so I've just disproved your assumption that "everyone has a gender identity".

It’s not rude, in my definition of words that is a nice polite sentence. If you can make your own definitions and words up why can’t the rest of us? You don’t know what words mean, you get upset cos facts are facts and you have the reading comprehension, empathy and compassion of a dissected chicken.

Trans women are not women. It’s a biological scientific fact. I don’t know what the argument is about. They are trans women. What’s wrong with being a trans woman? I’ve nothing against trans women at all. I’m against trans women trying to claim they are women - when they are not.

I don’t have a gender identity either.

Everyone has a gender identity

Evidence???

Trans women are not women. It’s a biological scientific fact.

I don't even know why this is being debated. They are trans gender rather than trans sex

They are not “genetically” female.

“Biologically female” is an ill defined Expression/ term. As is “phenotype” (too vague) , although most people would argue that having a female “phenotype” makes them “biologically female” , despite the xy karyotype.

When you say this:

“they are female by necessity, as they cannot ever BE male in any true sense. They have a much better chance of living as a woman”

I am certainly intrigued. Isn’t this comment suggestive of sex as a social construct/ not a binary. You raise the notion of a “lived gender” - which is not determined by biology (this is exactly how a lot of trans people experience their gender).

Final point - if you live in the world as a woman, and are recognised by others as a woman - you definitely do have a gender identity .

Anyway I am exhausted and must go to bed so shan’t be responding further at this stage.

I have tried my best to remain polite throughout this debate despite numerous attempts to shut me down/ call me stupid/ ignorant/ cringeworthy/ told to go away etc.

The vast majority are assigned female at birth by medics- and given medical interventions as such (hormones and surgeries)

You and your mum don’t actually know much about AIS do you?

There’s been a move away from “assigning at birth” with DSDs and very much a move away from early surgeries (ie to make an enlarged clitoris look smaller). With antenatal imaging and NIPT it’s now often appreciated antenatally that sex doesn’t match the phenotype and again, a move away from “assigning” anything.

An individual with AIS doesn’t need exogenous hormones. Partial AIS will androgenise at puberty as they have some androgen receptor activity.

Complete AIS have very high levels of testosterone that their bodies don’t respond to but this will aromatase to oestrogen.

Exogenous hormones may be given later on if the individual wishes to have internal testes removed but the risk of cancer has probably been overstated and this is less popular. XY DSD athletes who androgenise (competing against women) keep their testes, hence the debate about how much testosterone is too much.

There is no need at all for medical interventions as children.

Ok then the day that a trans woman comes into my labour ward and births a baby that's when I will view them as a woman.

We both know that's never gonna happen because it's not biologically possible.

Oh and before you start I am aware that women can suffer with reproductive problems resulting in being unable to bear a child. This does not make them any less a woman.

Trans women are men identifying as women but it doesn't make them one. I could identify as man but I'd never ever be one without a penis and prostate.

if you live in the world as a woman, and are recognised by others as a woman - you definitely do have a gender identity

I'm recognised as a woman due to my sex characteristics, not my gender identity.

I don’t have a gender identity either.

[arse on a plate emoji]

If that was really what you were asking, why weren't your options:

"Transwomen are women"
"Transwomen are not women"

It's perfectly possible to support people's right to dress as they please and call themselves what they wish, living their lives free from abuse and harassment without having to believe that Lia Thomas and Katie Dolatowalski are literally women, and accept them into women's spaces (the former is merely a cheat, the latter is truly sinister.

There are more than a dozen organ systems in the human body. Only one, the reproductive system, develops along two distinct phenotypic pathways, such that normal development results in either a male or a female configuration.

Like every other organs system in the human body, the development of the reproductive system is determined almost exclusively by genetics ("almost exlcusively" because there are extremely rare cases where other factos such as exposure to drugs in utero can interfere with the genetically programmed developmental process).

We tend to use "chromosomes" as a shorthand for the genetic determinants for sex because the in the vast majority of cases, the most important gene for determining whether or not the reproductive system will develop along the male or the female pathway (the SRY gene) is located on the Y chromosome. But there are other genes (such as the gene coding for the androgen receptor) located on other chromosomes which also contribute to the developmental pathway.

So biological sex is determined by the combined effect of all the genes which are relevant to the developmental pathway. In >99% of cases this combined effect can be predicted from the presence of absence of the Y chromosome. The existence of genetic abnormalities that influence the development of the repreductive system does not negate the fact the the normal development of this system is binary - male or female.

Sex is not a social construct. A female living on a desert island will still be female, regardless of the absence of "society" around her. Gender is a social construct that was created in response to societal expectations about how people of different sexes behave or should behave.

If our female castaway was rescued by a passing ship, nothing about her reproductive system would change, but she might find encounter a different set of behavioural expectations from the people she comes into contact with. That is the difference between sex and gender.

You can support both those statements. You can think that trans women are different from women while still fully supporting trans rights.

""I am certainly intrigued. Isn’t this comment suggestive of sex as a social construct/ not a binary. You raise the notion of a “lived gender” - which is not determined by biology (this is exactly how a lot of trans people experience their gender).
Final point - if you live in the world as a woman, and are recognised by others as a woman - you definitely do have a gender identity .""

Firstly, I have never been rude to you.
To your points.
In the VERY specific case of CAIS - I believe that yes, in this very very specific case, these individuals have a "lived gender" ie life "living as a woman" for them is probably far easier and more intuitive as life lived "as a male". They are socially conditioned to be female from day 1 of life (they have no other option, they don't virualise or masculinise EVER). They could never live as full males.

But I don't see HOW that is relevant to trans people, specifically trans women/ TW don't have a DSD. Many times, if not all the time, they have lived as male, been socialised as male, had a male puberty, male privilege etc. HOW CAN they know what it is to be "female" - they have never BEEN female. They have 100% male biology, chromosomally and phenotypically.

In other words, CAIS individuals do not have a choice. Trans people do.
It's a choice they are free to make, to "live as a woman", whatever that means to them. But is doesn't mean they are female.
It doesn't mean that they are the same as biological women.
It doesn't mean that sex isn't binary.
It doesn't mean that women have to cede their rights to men who now say they are "women".

You seem to be under the assumption that we deny the existence of trans people, or that we hate them, or that we don't think they should have rights.
This is all untrue.
We just don't think those "rights" (and what rights do they want again?) should come at the expense of women's rights. And a lot of times they do.

Lastly, I definitely DO NOT have a gender identity.
You are so assertive when it comes to saying that trans people ARE WHAT THEY SAY THEY ARE, and yet here I am, telling you I do not have a gender identity, and you are forcing one upon me? Gender is a social construct, and I do not buy into it.

We need to make a new slogan.

I do not have a gender identity
#nodebate

Of course sex and gender are different. Sex is saying that "you have a baby boy". Gender is automatically reaching for the blue blanket. Why not give the boy the pink blanket? Having a pink blanket doesn't make a boy a girl.

Everyone has a personality.

When I was younger I climbed trees, lived in jeans, skateboarded and watched WWE wrestling on the telly (Well WWF, showing my age). I played video games. I had rock bands, Star Trek and Wrestling posters on my walls.

I didn't like these things because society deemed them to be masculine. I liked them because I liked them. It mattered not a single jot to me that someone out there decided these were things for males

Now, I wear dresses all the time, I like a good rom com, I wear make up, I like sparkly jewellery and painting my nails. I like them because I like them. It still matters not a single jot that someone out there decided these things were for females. I also like sci-fi. I like comic book films. I like video games.

These days, it might be called non binary, but by saying you do not define yourself by gendered stereotypes, you are saying that these stereotypes are reality, that they are true.

I say bollocks to that, they aren't true. You have a sexed body, likes and dislikes. A personality. Exactly who gets to say things are "masculine" and "feminine"? Who decides what category they fall into? And why should you be beholden to them?

The one thing that IS true, that is constant, throughout our short time on this planet, is our sex. All this gender identity this, I identify as that, it does my nut in.

I am also a mother. To a daughter. And if anyone tries telling her that her likes and dislikes means she has special gender identity feelings, that she has to claim another sex or even no sex, in order to justify her personality, well, they will have me to answer to.

Final point - if you live in the world as a woman, and are recognised by others as a woman - you definitely do have a gender identity

So gender identity is something foisted on me externally but trans people have an innate one they get to pick?
Yeah seems legit.

In point of fact I don't have one. I'm a shitside less girly than most of the non binary identified types I see.

Oh, and "Girl"? "Woman"? These are sexed words. Young human female. Adult human female.

These words aren't being given up because a section of males would like to use them!

What, we now have to find another word to mean an adult human female?! And wait for the males to come for that one too?? They've already moved past "woman" in case you haven't noticed. They're coming for "female" now. So eff off.

OP I'm completely with you.

I used to enjoy MN but it is full of anti trans hatred.

J.K Rowling is thought of as a hero here...her own views have come from a place of fear and abuse. She had a partner abuse her which has triggered her massively into an anti trans activist for all the wrong reasons. It's the same reasons why a lot of people here are also anti trans.

The anger is so misplaced.

There is a very informative video that a trans YouTuber made that explains this point well and far better than I can. I don't know if anyone will take the time to watch but it's worth it. I've linked it at the timestamp she talks about this in detail so you don't have to watch the entire long video. I encourage people to watch just a few minutes of the video from this timestamp to see where I'm coming from. (If the timestamp in the video link doesn't work then watch from 1h 4m 54s)