To feel this way, as a woman?

[Malorcamum]

Meditating on what it is to be a woman. I don’t hate anyone, and I respect trans women. I feel they will simply never be women though. They’re a different group entirely, and that is ok.

I believe they should have equal rights and feel safe in the world. Everyone should have that right.

I don’t understand the insistence on being recognised as women, though.

The fact that women often feel uncomfortable around men, that physically they can often overpower us, that experience is valid too. Why should women’s spaces and rights be imposed upon? It should be ok for us to assert this without us being accused of being hateful or transphobic. We also have a right to feel safe.

Why can’t trans women have their own spaces and be celebrated as a group in their own right? I fully support that.

Trans women will never know what it’s like to be a woman, to menstruate and bear children. To go through female puberty. I can understand why that may be hard to accept if you don’t feel you’ve been born in the right body, but it’s impossible for anyone to change that.

I should not have to clarify my pronouns or refer to myself as cisgender. I am a woman. I am proud to be a woman. I have been discriminated against as a woman. I have been unsafe as a woman. I have experienced violence and harassment as a woman. I have been privileged as a woman. I have intimate female relationships which are different to my relationships with men. It’s my lived experience and mine alone. Trans women experience these things, but not from the same perspective.

In asking me to recognise you as a woman, I feel you’re asking me to deny my own experience.

Equally, if by saying that you’re a woman is to deny women their own experience. To say that you’re a trans woman is to accept, celebrate and embody your own experience.

If you don’t want to be referred to as ‘he/him’, that’s fine, but ‘they/them’ already has a different meaning - referring to a collective group of people. It’s confusing and impractical to use ‘they/them’. I’d have no issues using ‘zey/zem’, or another set of pronouns which specifically means trans woman. I want to live in a world where both are accepted and free.

I’m really interested in what other people think and understanding other people’s perspectives. What do you think?

You are not being unreasonable. No one can change sex and men cannot become women.

There are a range of reasons why some men decide to call themselves women, some of them are unsavoury or downright evil (eg. Andrew George or Adam Graham) but none of them mean they are actually women.

The ‘developed’ world has had a period of madness from which we seem to be emerging. Soon it will no longer be necessary to point out that women don’t have penises and ‘identity’ doesn’t trump sex in any situation (especially to benefit men) but for now we must keep repeating the obvious truths.

Some women can’t see these obvious truths and are determined to undermine everything we have gained in the last 100 years but our daughters will thank us in the long run for not giving away their rights.

This topic has been done to death on MN pretty much every day same thread different posters.

And it needs to keep being shouted from the rooftops.

Men who identify as women are not women, they’re a subset of men called ‘trans women’. They deserve respect and the same human rights as anyone else. But they are not women and should not have access to women’s rights and spaces, awards, sports, prisons, shelters, changing rooms, swimming pools, clubs, associations.

Trans women are by their very nature appropriating womanhood.

The woke of society celebrate it, but they would and have scorned those appropriating blackness.

It is just another form of misogyny.

I fully agree.

I agree, and find your perspective reassuring. It's fascinating how rapidly the consensus emerged that

Trans women are women = correct and respectful
Trans women are not women = bigotted

In an alternative universe that valued women's "lived experience" (ridiculous tautology aside!) more than trans-identified men's, it would be the other way around:

Trans women are women = bigotted (denies women a distinct reality and word)
Trans women are trans women = correct & respectful (and more precise!)

Neither 1) nor 2) above is inherently "right" or ethical. Both are simply value judgements, which reflect who, and what, our society prioritises as most valid / worthy of recognition: the "lived experience" of the transwoman, or that of the "biological" (grr! I so resent having to add that) woman.

And what's especially revealing of society's values is that, of these two options, the first demands that women give up any word of their own and their total recognition as a political and legal class... While the second permits both women and transwomen to retain descriptors and recognition.

The reality that, despite this, the first, requiring women's absolute capitulation and negation, is favoured (and the extent to which it's favoured, with opposition to it often abusive and even violent) is very, very revealing.

I'd say also that the fact that some women themselves favour the first reinforces this further.

The very worst kind of oppression is the kind that is so deeply embedded that it can't be seen, even by those suffering it. The kind that can't even be named, because the oppressed group is denied the very language necessary to do so, by a value system that actively condemns them for asking for this.

Could you not have contributed to one of the other 3 billion threads on exactly the same topic?

Best get on, Jc - with another 2,999,999,999 threads to condemn for discussing this, you've got a big job on your hands! 😉

More seriously, each thread has its own different slant - and each poster who cares enough to start a thread expressing their personal views on this, in an appropriate way, deserves to be heard.

Zey/Zem sounds ridiculous....

It's hard to be zen about zey/zem, it's true...

Thank you for your contribution.

Though many may not realise it, gender ideology is a vast human rights and safeguarding issue that has already caused catastrophic harm and if massive change doesn’t come quickly, will end up costing the taxpayer many millions in compensation ranging from medical harm, negligence and other liability claims. For a starting point the average payout for infertility with sexual dysfunction £140,210 to £207,260.

Compensation for phalloplasty harm claims are likely to be at the higher end of all compensation due to permanent disfigurement/disability and ongoing pain.

The medical scandal is at least on a par with lobotomies or smoking - we have a network of ‘gender clinics’ staffed by activists whose aim is to promote medical ‘transition’ to vulnerable people, there are rogue GPs continuing to do all they can to provide medical harm to vulnerable kids and an entire hospital set up to carry out phalloplasties on vulnerable girls with a variety of untreated mental health conditions.

This procedure has an approx 90% complication rate and has been touted by American hospitals as a great profit earner due to the fact it creates such a high number of serious health issues and revisions. There has already been a death of high profile trans identified female due to complications.

Until very recently criticism of this ideology was heavily censored and oppressed and still is by ‘trusted’ institutions like the BBC who repeatedly lie and obfuscate the truth. They can no longer be trusted to report with any degree of accuracy and they avoid it whenever possible. They also are refusing to comply with the law in providing adequate facilities for their female staff.

That means that society is reliant on women in networks like Mumsnet to spread the word. Mumsnet has had repeated attacks intended to take down its website and advertisers have been targeted to reduce Mumsnet revenue in retaliation for allowing women even a very restricted voice to speak about the issues.

Anyone determined not to take an interest in this incredibly important issue is free to scroll past.

Bored so I'll bite.

Specifically regarding the pronouns:
When you address me, you use the second person singular, i.e. you call me "you".
When you talk about me in my presence, you use my name, i.e. you say to the other person in front of me "Euclidian told me about it earlier".
Not "she told me about it earlier" - that is considered rude and will prompt me to say "who is 'she', the cat's mother?"
Note, an email into which I am copied counts as 'in my presence'.

When you talk about me and I am not there, use any pronouns you like as I won't know about it.

Therefore, a transwoman saying "my pronouns are she/her" is not only trying to compel other people's speech, he is trying to control what other people say in his absence.

Totally agree.
You could be me.

I agree that trans-identified men deserve the same rights as others, but I don't see why they should deserve respect. Respect is earned. If a man's actions cause harm, why should I respect him for the choices he has made?

Miranda Yardley, who calls himself a transexual, is a trans-identified man who has earned my respect because he recognises that he is not a woman and that he has no right to colonise women's spaces. He stands up to the TRA bullies on these matters.

I disagree slightly - I prefer a world in which respect is the default, but something that can be lost.

I can't respect the idea that the 51% of the population who are effectively imprisoned in their homes in Afghanistan - & who, in the UK, were only liberated from marital rape in the '90s & are just heading towards the centenary of being allowed to vote - should no longer be permitted a word or political recognition of their own.

I also can't respect those who promote this view unthinkingly and often aggressively without showing any capacity for rational and respectful engagement with contrasting perspectives. Unlike many who may call me bigoted, I can often respect those who try to do this in good faith, even if I'm not convinced by them.

(In this context, it's sometimes interesting to look up the word "bigot" and reflect on how its definition applies in this context!)

The man who says, "I'm a woman. Gimme" has entirely lost my respect.

Thanks for the responses, everyone!

It’s taken me a long time to figure out how I feel about this issue, and even longer to post anything for fear of being labelled a bigot. I am generally quite liberal in my views and I was scared to add to the hate against trans people.

It’s good to hear that I’m not alone in my views that trans people should have rights, just not at the expense of women!

What a controversial and brave opinion to share on this message board. Never heard that before. Wow.

There are men, women and a miniscule number of intersex people.

Anything else is mental illness.

Plenty of bio women will never know what it is like to bear children. But I take your point

I’ve always wanted to share my opinion and view but never feel clever enough (especially as people who even agree with you OP are giving you snarky remarks about sharing your opinion) or informed enough, and of course absolutly terrified of any backlash!
But, like you OP, I’m just getting to grips with how I feel and it’s been unfolding for a good few years and I’m still not 100% sure. I think it’s good for those of us who aren’t confident in our views yet, and are still getting to grips with them, to be able to speak out too and not just the bolshy confident ones.

I always thought I was extremely liberal, would spend my 20’s with a gay club in a big city as my regular haunt every night of the weekend, friends with both just social cross-dressers and people who identified as trans. I didn’t care one jot about sharing the unisex toilets there, would take anyone at face value for who they wanted to be, call them any name/pronoun they wanted and genuinely supported everyone. Would stand up and shout loudly in my support for people to be who they wanted to be.
however, on the other hand I was raised by a strong feminist and started to notice that although I was accepting of everyone else identifying as who they wanted to be, and being called whatever they wanted to be called; I, as a woman, was not granted the same respect/privilege anymore.

It started with feeling ‘ o actually I don’t want to be identified as a cis-woman, I’m just a woman’ but too scared to offend anyone to say anything.

Then j.k Rowling put her head above the parapet and spoke in defence of women, and at first I was outraged. I actually had only heard second-hand about what she was saying, and everyone said she was transphobic and I found that outrageous as it felt so wrong and far from how I felt. I lazily echoed false statements that people told me without question, I had adored Harry Potter as a child and I was swept up for a moment in the narrative that she was a terrible terrible person with the worst views!
Until my mum asked me to tell her specifically what J.K Rowling said that offended me. I realised I hadn’t actually read any of the ‘tweets’ and I had a general idea based on what others had told me. Of course, when I actually read J.K Rowlings opinions, I couldn’t actually pin point anything that I found that I hugely disagreed with.

I also found a lot of the trans movement seemed to reinforce dated gender stereotypes that I just don’t agree with, and also affected my lesbian friends specifically. For one example that they are transphobic if they don’t want to have sex/relationship with a transwoman. As a straight women, I can’t imagine that I would ever be attracted to a trans man, and surely that is my personal right.

I then realised that just because I am mostly comfortable sharing a toilet with a trans women, I do not speak for all women and how dare I disregard other women’s experiences just because I don’t personally care.

I’m still trying to figure out what solution I actually champion, and where i sit. At the moment I’m still trying to get to the bottom of how I feel and what I believe as I’m still conflicted on a lot of areas.
I’m still too afraid to speak out as scared of being labeled a transphobe.
On an individual level I still feel that I would like someone to be who they want to be, and live life how they want to, but i also cant get my head around the basic science of sex is not changeable. On a dna level you can’t chose to change your sex.

I hope, and I do feel, like ever so slowly the tides are changing and more people are starting to think more about what this all actually means for women going forwards, and starting to form their own thoughtful, nuanced opinions. I certainly will keep trying to unpack my own opinions as I still have a lot of grey areas where I’m just not sure how I feel.

The sarcastic posters policing the thread prove your point - it is still difficult to be honest about this. Either your view is transphobic (not had one yet, but it will come), or it is boring - in both cases you should pipe down and be quiet. Discussion is Not Welcome.

Please be welcome on FWR S&G board where much better brains than mine contribute daily insights on this topic.

Cogniyive psychology tells us that one of the reasons it is so hard to change minds (your own, or someone else's) is because of the undermining of personal identity in the process. Obviously this would be existential if you identify as trans, but even for those of us have always identified as liberal, kind, open-minded, the upheaval needed to see we were wrong about certain aspects of the liberal movement is dislocating. My own epiphany came from experience as an HCP with distressed gender-confused children and young people. I couldn't unsee the harm the medical /psych profession was doing in the name of kindness.

I have found it profoundly undermining and now question all of my norms - new or deeply held.

Just so you are warned about the further soul-searching you might find yourself making now the scales have fallen!

I'm really over the whole thing to be honest. 'Transwomen' are men. End of.

You're missing the fact that the entire "transgender" narrative is basically a smokescreen to enable pervy men to get their end away by walking around in womanface and forcing women to go along with it. Some men have gone to the lengths of war to service their particular sexual desire. This is no different, people are just naive about it. All others who want us to pretend they are the opposite sex (e.g. young gay men and women) are all fodder to mask this fact.

In practice, the best way to treat "trans women" (abusive or frighteningly delusional men) is to greyrock.

Why can’t trans women have their own spaces

Because most of the time, it's a fetish. And knowing they're violating women's private spaces gets their dicks hard.

There's no thrill in having a third space. That's why when the World Aquatics created a separate category for transgender swimmers to compete, they had zero entrants.