Are you a feminist, if yes, what does it mean to you?

[YouAreNotBatman]

YANBU = I’m am
YABU = I am not

Lol of course I've been accused of being transphobic on a thread of people who would shoo a trans women out of a women's bathroom. Don't fight with a pig and all that. Peace ✌🏻

TW for sexual assault

I would love to understand the man who subjected me to hours of sexual abuse, including rape, sodomy and cutting me with a knife, all because I wanted to break up with him (I was 15, he was 27 and I wanted to date someone closer to my own age).

He now ‘identifies as a woman’, claims to have ‘identified as a woman’ since he was a young teenager and is now heading a group for ‘gender questioning teenagers’.

So @NalaNana, was I raped by a woman? If I were to go to the police and he, sorry, she, were to be prosecuted (unlikely) and be sentenced to time in prison (even more unlikely) should this person be housed in the women’s jail? Because that’s where your feminism ends up, supporting male bodied people who, in the words of Shania Twain ‘feel like a woman’. I can assure you, the things he did to me were things that women physically can’t do, and if he felt like he was a woman when he was doing those things to me, then he really has got the wrong end of the stick.

I have nothing in common with that monster, apart from the fact that we both breathe and need food and water to live. I have more in common with my pet dog than I do with him, and I would rather include her in my feminism than that piece of shit.

Sorry for derailing the thread OP.

By the way OP. I am loving this thread. Because there is so many quite interesting posts, each with a different nuance or opinion. Thank you.

You both would suffer with sexist recruitment/salaries,

Except that any middle aged man that transitions will have already had the benefit of male privilege and the gender pay gap. The same with any atheletes that have transitioned after puberty, they already come with the advantage.

Females don't

Which is why you don't seem to see trans men wishing to compete against men in sport presumably etc

Some would like to, but obviously they don't stand a chance of qualifying with an unaltered female body, and they are disqualified if they are on testosterone.

For me, this is a feminist issue. A very niche one, granted, but a feminist one nonetheless.

Trans women can take hormones to artificially lower their testosterone level - to a level that is still far higher than that of biological women and does not in any event eliminate the advantage gained from having gone through male puberty - and as a result, be allowed to compete against biological women, to the detriment of those women.

Trans men, on the other hand, have to choose between hormones and sport. Because even though taking testosterone would not raise their testosterone levels to anything comparable to a biological male, or give them an equivalent advantage to those who have gone through male puberty, and would therefore not give them a competitive advantage over the male athletes, they are still banned from doing it.

We know who is male and who is female. The males are the ones with the privilege, regardless of how anyone identifies.

I have the same in common with trans women as I have with men. I possibly have some additional things in common with trans women re discrimination just as I might have things in common with people (male or female) with certain accents or looks re discrimination. That still doesn't make them women.

The reality is the vast, vast majority of trans women are easily perceivable as male by the vast, vast majority of people. Any discrimination they suffer is due to their trans status and is not the same as discrimination sufferered by women.

I think the fact that we can’t even have a thread on feminism without someone jumping into essentially say “but what about the (TW) menz?????” shows why we need feminism

@risefromyourgrave 💐

I have no words.

Because I possess both a vagina and a brain, and I don’t want to be a second class citizen or have the course of my life dictated by my chromosomes.
Because I believe that we will never be safe or free in a world that places male whims above female lives.

If they are ‘actual’ women do they struggle with the following:

• periods and associated issues/accommodations


• giving birth and associated issues/accommodations in society/workplaces/education etc.


• breast feeding complications


• gynaecological issues inc. cancers only associated with female bodies eg breast, cervix, ovaries etc


• menopause


• FGM


• sexual harassment and consistent threat and anxiety of sexually motivated attack


• female infanticide


• vaginal rape


• lifelong repercussions of misogyny

I’m sure there are many I’ve missed but the answer is NO. And why? Because they’re not ‘actual’ women. Far from it. To paraphrase Germaine Greer ‘putting on a pair of floppy ears and a waggy tail doesn’t make one a fucking spaniel.’

My feminism centres biological women and the fact that I even have to qualify it that way says we’ve got a lot of work to do.

@FangsForTheMemory you should be ashamed to call yourself a feminist if that’s really what you think.

Can we all for once just fucking ignore the tedious arseholes who have to centre men in every single conversation, including the ones about feminism? We know what they’re doing, just let them bore on in the corner, don’t give them oxygen.

Ok. So that is a no?

You cannot explain further?

And you cannot see that it is transphobic to base your opinions around how well one transitioned male passes or not? Hence the need to actually make robust provisions for all trans people to suit their specific and unique needs in laws and policies rather than shoe horning their needs into the rights and protections for females?

I get the desire to speak from the spleen. This thread is a chance to speak from the heart. The love and respect you have for other women. That which inspires and drives your activism.

Come on, let's have a positive feminist thread for a change.

This!!!!!

risefromyourgrave

Women should not have to expose their trauma to make others understand. I am so sorry.

Yes, this.

We shouldn't need to say, "I was raped by a man and I find the presence of male strangers in a place where I am undressing traumatic", or "I am a Muslim and cannot undress in the presence of male strangers because it is against my religious beliefs" in order to justify not wanting to share changing facilities with trans women.

"No, that doesn't work for us" should be a good enough answer.

You know what, this is really disappointing as an answer because I too have asked countless people to describe what ‘the female gender’ is (and no it isn’t obvious unless it’s a list of sexist stereotypes like w joying

By the way, I did not say you were 'transphobic'. I said that the opinion expressed:

Just because you don't recognise them as female knowing their history, doesn't mean they aren't recognised as female by people who don't know their history.

was transphobic.

Do you understand why it might be read as transphobic?

I guess I'm a feminist, not really sure. I read some of these threads and honestly it goes over my head sometimes. I think its because I have never felt personally discriminated against (apart from being discriminated because of a disability) so it's always harder to feel something you haven't experienced.

Do I believe women should be treated equally? Of course.

Every time you travel in a car you are less safe than a man travelling in the same car because crash test dummies are modeled on male bodies and not female bodies.

What does it mean to ‘appear as female’. My DD lives in baseball caps and men’s tracksuits. Is she female?

And can you point us to resources you recommend and also stats to back up your claims that TW suffer the exact same discrimination as biological women? Are any males born in the female gender at risk of FGM? Are TW refused abortions?

Also saying that we’d suffer the same workplace discrimination and risk of assault would imply that women like me who don’t subscribe to the stereotypical female, DON’T suffer these things. Which is of course bullshit.

Our biology is the root cause of our oppression. Please stop pretending otherwise, it’s gaslighting in its most ridiculous form

You don't have to feel personally discriminated against to understand that women as a whole are discriminated against. Feminism is the fight for these women, whether or not you experience the same problems. Having said that, I feel that women everywhere do experience problems due to their sex. These might not always be obvious but as you age, and especially if you have children you are likely to experience at least some of them.

I'm always a bit gobsmacked when people say that they aren't feminist.
For me it is about equality in pay for women and rights for women.