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

Absolutely agree about stopping stereotyping.

Lots of men wear "dresses" and "skirts" as their every day attire in some countries and no one suggest or even fights for them to be woman .

Clothes and outward appearance do not chance someone's sex. They shouldn't matter.

And absolutely agree if someone has a genuine feeling they are trapped I. The wrong body they need medical intervention in the way of therapy as a first resort.

This! The vast majority of the general public don't believe that transwomen are women and transmen are men. This doesn't make the majority of the population transphobic.

The irony is, until the last few years, most were willing to let transwomen (transsexuals, as they were known before the Stonewall rebrand) go about their business without much comment or fanfare. Now, thanks to the relentless violent lobbying, there's a lot of resentment. I feel genuinely sorry for old school transsexuals and those who just want to get on with their lives.

I’m not trans. I’m a 35 year old pregnant woman (which is why I started coming to Mumsnet in the first place). Despite insistence from people that I am clearly a man as one of the oddest attempts to discredit my opinion!

It just seems to circle - endlessly - back to gender essentialism.

I am not saying that trans women are female sexed. They are clearly not, as many wish to alter their bodies! They were obviously born male sexed and feel this is the wrong body for them.

But my view is that biology does not dictate gender. For many their biology and gender align, which is fortunate. For trans people it doesn’t. So to me, a trans woman is a woman as I understand it - something that goes beyond our biology and whether we have a womb, certain chromosomes - any kind of biological characteristic. These things are meaningless to me, and all trans people as far as I understand, in terms of gender identity.

I believe the issue of elite sports and refuges are really difficult ones. But that doesn’t mean trans women are not women. There are plenty of spaces in the world where not all women can belong. I am heterosexual and there are safe gay spaces that I shouldn’t enter, safe spaces for women of colour etc. That doesn’t mean I’m not a woman. For me it’s perfectly logically consistent for a trans woman to be a woman and there still be room to think about how exactly we protect both them and vulnerable cis women in society.

(And please don’t yell at me for my use of the term cis. I am not referring to you all
as cis women, as I understand that’s not how you identify - cis is an accepted term in academic literature and you may take offence to it but it’s not in itself a derogatory term).

The trouble is OP that you can't legitimately just redefine the word woman from 'adult human female' to an ill defined wishy washy feeling.

If you want to use a term for that feeling then you have to come up with a new word. You can't just appropriate the word woman which has had a consistent meaning for centuries.

Good luck with the pregnancy OP. Being a new mum, most women will say, is when you really feel like a grown up. Being a mum is scary, wonderful and makes you aware of all the biological advantages and disadvantages that come with being a woman. Reality hits. You also have a lioness urge to protect your children from harm including ideologies. All of which leads to the answers you got today. Of course most women respect trans people but biology is reality.

I was that girl. The reasons were two fold.

First, because I kept being told I was girling wrong. Too loud,too active, too this ,too that. I couldn't do the things I wanted to do,but boys could. Even worse,at times I got punished for doing those things. So I started thinking that there was something wrong with me,that being a boy would be so much better, I'd have more freedom,I could be me. I started thinking and saying I have a boy brain long before I was aware that trans was a thing.

The second was puberty, and what came with it was friends trying to cop a feel and stuff like that that completely changed those friendships , 30 yo men hitting on me and asking me to be their girlfriend,my grandfather having a go, a sexual assault and many more. If i was a boy I'd be safe. I could be friends again,in the right way. I could be one of the boys. I wanted to be one of the boys. I started wearing very loose clothing,ball caps, try to walk and stand like them. To my shame join in with the jokes and banter and ridicule of other girls,because I was one of the boys. I remember the elation one night when I was hanging out with some boys and another guy came ,shook hands with everyone (the boy way) including me! I had passed! I was one of them.

Of course all of that was a fake sense of security and pointless. I was still a girl,just even a weirder one, I wasn't safe,I wasn't one of them , other sexual assaults happened, more punishments or name calling, I got a "reputation " because obviously no girl hangs out with boys that much without gagging for it and giving it up. In the end I gave up I was a girl, I couldn't hide it or hide from it, might as well try it. Bad things happened anyways.

But I can't fully explain into words how entrenched that idea became, that maleness is good and feminity is bad.I was a complete mysoginist(which is so ironic) , I thought girls were boring and silly and frilly. I wasn't like the other girls.I hated their company and always played more with boys/had boy friends. I was proud of that like it was some achievement , all men's rights and NAMALT and all the other bullshit and much more. Some bits still stayed with me like for example desperately wanting a boy and definitely not a girl when I was going to have children. I rejected the feminist term and it was all ridiculous and wrong,just wrong and mean and exclusionary. It took years to untangle all that and relearn everything , including learning to respect and appreciate women and girls,their rights,seeing their awesomeness,their struggles, the importance of their rights. I'm proud to be a woman now and proud to call myself a feminist.

Thank fuck though that this didn't happen in 2022. I didn't want to be a boy. I wanted to be safe. I wanted freedom. I wanted to do things and be who I was. I wasn't born in the wrong body. I was born in the wrong country/society/mentality.

Oh fuck,sorry that was long.

StolenCookie, so you're happy enough that gay men and women of colour have their own safe spaces that you wouldn't dream of entering, but you're quite happy to throw women in general under a bus and think transwomen should be allowed in any safe spaces claimed by women?

I'd also like to unpick your sex/gender statements but there's no point unless someone can explain what being a woman means. It is pretty much down to our biology, but it's our biology which makes us particularly vulnerable.

IdontWanna, it might have been a long post but it was a great post.

Patriarchy and misogyny. 'Twas ever thus.

Ah, forty pages of arguing and finally we gwt to the nub of it!

You are defining women by this nebulous concept of gender

And most other posters are defining women by their biological bodies

Yet who are you to say your way is the right one?

I am not saying that trans women are female sexed. They are clearly not

Well there's a development. You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?

The issue is that the majority on here see that female sex, which is tangible, real, scientifically evidenced - as much more important in many aspects of this debate than gender, which is never defined without reference to societal stereotypes and dependent on wooly ideas of what's in people's heads.

In another crucial way it doesn't matter. People are standing up for rights to single sex spaces and single sex sports. Not single gender.

According to your own definition then, transgender women, being male sexed , should have no more rights to these spaces than any other male sexed

Person

Brilliant post, IDontWanna

Your final part summed it up: I wasn't born in the wrong body. I was born in the wrong country/society/mentality.

That’s why trying to define “woman” to include “vague nebulous feeling some men have when they’re uncomfortable with elements of masculinity” is bullshit…because what ‘gender’ represents varies across time and geography, from culture to culture, so it can’t possibly be innate.

because what ‘gender’ represents varies across time and geography, from culture to culture, so it can’t possibly be innate.

Excellent point

Stolen why is it you can't see that your view aligns with most of us on this thread with regards transwoman and access to spaces.

The. Wry people you've called transphobes and has false shock at their stance towards?

The only difference is your insistence on staying TWAW. Whereas most of us say TW are TW. You've also ignored the many of us here who know TW who also describe themselves as TW and not woman.

You aren't having a different debate. You are misunderstanding the one you're having spectacularly.

You can have ranrights and support transrights without supporting trans people being in protective spaces.

You can also believe gender and sex are the same but that won't change the biological and scientific fact that they are not. Sex is biological and gender is a social construct.

I really think instead of flying insults at people and a whole site you actually read comprehend and digest what's been said and take heed of all the similarities in your stance and most of societies.

IdontWanna that may be long but it was very informative and insightful and I'm sorry for your experiences

Hospital wards, refuges, rape crisis services, and yes, bloody prisons, don't need to be single gender, they just need to be single SEX. Transmen are welcome in all those spaces, because they are female, not male.

While I am not exactly on OP’s side here, to be fair, she didn’t say that - she said that if they are recognised as women they can still respect there being women’s spaces that it isn’t appropriate for them to enter.

Much as a white woman wouldn’t enter a black women’s group, perhaps a trans women shouldn’t enter a cis women’s refuge.

@idontwanna brilliant post. I truly hope you're now happy and secure in yourself.

OP, you really are saying the same as us "transphobes", you know. You're refusing to learn.

It just seems to circle - endlessly - back to gender essentialism.

I am not saying that trans women are female sexed. They are clearly not, as many wish to alter their bodies! They were obviously born male sexed and feel this is the wrong body for them.

But my view is that biology does not dictate gender. For many their biology and gender align, which is fortunate. For trans people it doesn’t. So to me, a trans woman is a woman as I understand it - something that goes beyond our biology and whether we have a womb, certain chromosomes - any kind of biological characteristic. These things are meaningless to me, and all trans people as far as I understand, in terms of gender identity.

Right, but gender, and gender identity, are meaningless to me.

I understand perfectly well that sex and gender are not the same.

Sex is biological. It is real. It is observable. It is definable by reference to objective criteria. It exists in nature and would continue to exist in nature even if we had no words to describe it.

The same cannot be said about gender. Gender is, as far as I can tell, no more than stereotypes about men and women. The same kind of stereotypes feminists have been fighting against for centuries. Stereotypes which many women, who are happy to be and refer to themselves as women, do not conform to.

By saying that trans women are women, you are saying that it is "gender" which makes someone a woman, and not sex.

But as far as I am concerned, this both excludes me from the definition of "woman", and denies me the ability to describe myself as a member of the female sex, which is the only way I wish to identify myself.

I don't care about gender. I think it's regressive. I don't accept the legitimacy of gender, or gender identity, or gender roles, as any kind of basis on which to organise society.

If some people want to define themselves as people who like feminine things and present in a feminine way, irrespective of their sex, that's fine. But I would like them to leave me out of it.

By using the word "woman" to mean that, they aren't leaving me out of it. They are forcing me into a box which I don't want to be in. The only way for me to escape this box is for me to relinquish the word woman, and to say I no longer see myself as a woman because the definition has changed.

But if I do that, people will assume I identify as "non binary". I don't. I am binary. I am female as opposed to male.

I want to have the language to say I am an adult human of the female biological sex. I want a word for that group of people which does not and cannot ever include any male people, however they may personally feel they identify.

I don't care about gender. Gender is regressive and sexist and can fuck off as far as I'm concerned.

ldontWanna what a powerful post, thank you for sharing that.

Much as a white woman wouldn’t enter a black women’s group, perhaps a trans women shouldn’t enter a cis women’s refuge.

That would be great if there actually were any refuges for natal women.

That's a good point.

The reason we don't have safe slaves where male sex bodies can't enter is because they are putting the rights of TW over biological woman.

If as society we did this and created third spaces - it's starting as happening in sport - then this debate be aimed less about semantics and totally about inclusion which everyone agrees with.

But fundamentally currently it comes down to the fact woman have the respect not to enter spaces reserved or designed for minority groups.

Biological Ken who are TW do not afford society this same respect.

And that is the cause of this issue.

Transwomen are, by definition, male. So they cannot be women. (Just as I, being female, cannot be a transwoman.)

Like most women whose comments I read on Mumsnet, I am not anti-trans. I am pro-women, which includes keeping males out of women's single-sex spaces.

Over the past few years, I must admit, I have gradually changed my attitude towards transwomen. I always supported people's rights to dress and present as they please. But having seen how many sex crimes are committed by males in spaces that should be single-sex (including prisons and hospitals where women are extra vulnerable), I have become less complacent.

What on earth…

I literally said that we need space to think about how to protect vulnerable trans women AND vulnerable cis women.

I know I and others here have a very significant difference of opinion. But I hope even some of you on the other side can see how impossible it is when I’m accused of holding views that I don’t. It makes it clear to me that all some of you want to do is fight and smear, rather than engage with the issues.