to think no one can define living as a woman

[funtimess]

if you are a biological man.

Or indeed define living as a man if they are a biological woman.

What is the definition, how do you define a person ‘living" as the opposite sex?

AIBU to think that nobody is going to be able to define this unless they resort to regressive stereotypes.

YABU - I can define this for you without using regressive stereotypes.
YANBU - You are right, you can’t define this without using regressive stereotypes.

We can’t have a society where men and women are treated identically though - periods and childbirth can only affect one sex, we have structural differences that mean one size can’t fit all. So biology matters

we could have. A society that was somewhat less sexist , less littered with stereotypes. Then gender would be nothing

Honestly, the only time I think about being a woman is because of health issues. My body is female; I have had horrendous periods, a difficult menopause, I am having to have a hysterectomy due to a dodgy biopsy, and I have an autoimmune disease which has given me hypothyroidism- the disease is predominantly a female issue.

When I’m trying to overcome these health issues by swimming, hiking, or just bloody getting on with it, I don’t think about what sex I am.

When I choose books or music, I’m not led by my sex.

When I buy clothes, I look for sustainability, purpose, and comfort, and as a result, buy from both male, female, and unisex collections.

Does anyone really consider from day to day (biology and wage gap aside) that they are female? Do you ponder on it?

And yet, many female people don’t want male people in their single sex rape crisis provisions.

Here is one:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5453592-still-no-single-sex-rape-crisis-support-in-brighton-but

There are also threads about others and plenty of content written by victims and those directly involved in providing girls and woman support who disagree with you.

“The way to help is to refuse access to all rapists.”

Yes. Of course. And how do people do this ? I believe it starts with excluding the overwhelmingly proven main group of people doing that assaulting and abusing - male people. However they identify. Because people don’t have convenient signs that say they are good people or not. So the starting place is excluding all male people and creating no specially treated groups of male people.

And many female people can correctly identify male people and feel traumatised simply being in situation that they need to be female single sex only. So why deny them this provision based on your determination that the risk to be considered is whether they know the person or not and that some female people are sex offenders too?

1. Be born female.
2. Live to adulthood.
3. That's it.

I know right! It’s almost as if clothes etc don’t make a woman or a man.

My answer is about defining ‘living AS a woman’.

As you're a doctor, you should know both that male vocal cords are different from females, and that the male skeletal structure is different from females. Hence the 'tells'. You would also know that it has been shown in university studies that women (and young children) can identify a male in 96% of cases.

It's really, really not difficult to tell a male body from a female body. It really isn't. And nobody had any real problems for centuries/millennia that civilisation as reproduced and flourished. Seemingly until the last 10-15 years. Maybe as a doctor you could explain why we can't suddenly 'know' something we've known for multi millennia. (and sans medical tests).

Edited to add that that is if you are a medical doctor, you don't say, but perhaps I presumed wrongly.

Does the NHS specifically require a man to actually wear dresses and skirts, in order to qualify?

Iirc there was a study that showed if people are shown faces without skin tone and hair that people were very successful in correctly identifying the sex of the faces they were shown. Based on bone structure under skin.

Until you've had periods, are at risk of being and getting pregnant, being afraid of walking down a road by yourself, being leered at by older men, being touched inappropriately, dealing with childbirth, going through the menopause, having and dealing with endometriosis, breast feeding your child, being raped and sexual assault, domestic violence or all female experiences of that a man will probably never experience "living as a woman." So yes it's reductive stereotypes.

That's a list of things that aren't every woman's experience though.
So saying "until you've experienced these" is 🙄

It’s Christmas - have a day off 🙄

A Scottish study show that 97% of women and girls have experienced sexual harassment. Add on periods, childbirth, and all the rest of it, I would say those would cover all if not 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of females.

A man can never live ‘more like a woman’ because he will never be a woman. There isn’t such a thing as degrees of womanhood. It’s not a sliding scale - that’s like saying the ‘genderbread’ scale from Barbie to GI Joe shows how much someone lives ‘like a woman’.
Here’s a lesson plan from an online website ‘The Safe Zone’ that produce LGBTQ “educational” resources. Have a look, it’s hilariously dangerous to think our children have been taught such utter nonsense in our schools.
https://thesafezoneproject.com/activities/genderbread-person/

The whole Gender mess is centred in rich western countries
where people have too little real stuff to worry about.

Transing kids is an upper middle class thang
(they want to rebel and long hair / drugs / being gay no longer does it)

AGPs are a western fetish

Affirming trans identitities is as daft as
affirming anorexia
(who else remembers the "Pro-Ana" panic 15 years ago)

I know not everywoman have/will experience all of that list but every woman will have experienced something on the list.

Whether or not a female person experienced menstruation during their life, they are the people who have the body formed for the production of ova regardless of whether that body does or does not produce those large gametes.

Even the fact that a female person doesn’t produce gametes is part of the female experience. Because no male people need to have their bodies investigated or treated for lack of menstruation, no male people menstruate. Only female people - ever.

Hence the only way to ‘live as a woman’ is to be born a female person with a body formed around the production of large gametes regardless of whether they will ever produce those gametes or not.

There are also no way a male person can live ‘more’ like a female person and ‘less’ like a male person. There is no way this works. They will always be ‘living’ as just another way for a male person to live.

No, childbirth and periods for example doesn't cover all women.
Neither does being too scared to walk down a road by ourselves.

What sex do you think would be mainly (mainly being the word here) affected by the two issues you’ve mentioned? Go on, have a wild stab..

Yes, I agree women would be more impacted by the issues you mention.
I definitely don't agree with people on here saying "until you've experienced" or making out we all have those experiences. We don't.
It's always reducing women to their bodily functions or to victims (too scared to go out by ourselves/,it's not safe etc) on here. Which is so far from feminism to me, and imo much more harmful to women's rights than trans people ever will be.

“childbirth and periods for example doesn't cover all women.”

The ‘potential’ for childbirth and periods do cover ALL female people though. They are uniquely in the position where they have the body that was born with the potential to have childbirth and periods unless a medical condition, injury or medical choices prevents periods and / or pregnancy.

No male people have this potential.

I think the difference is the expectations put upon you. Women are generally expected to be kind and nurturing, be okay with looking after other people’s children, etc. We’re expected to behave ourselves. Men are expected to be strong and provide. They get away with being blunt more than women, not remembering to buy Christmas presents. Things like that.

“It's always reducing women to their bodily functions”

Female bodies are the only shared aspect of being female that all female people experience.

What part of female sex based oppression does not start because of them having a female body?

Yes because they think that's all they have to do to be a woman, forgetting the fact that women are born completely biologically different.

“Which is so far from feminism to me”

Just adding, what kind of feminism is not based on liberating female people from oppression? Particularly oppression based on them having a female body?