Conciliatory Conversation On gender

[FairAdvocate]

Hello!

In the last few months I have been reflecting on the transgender and feminism debate and I feel I've got a few things to share with you on it from a perspective perhaps you wont maybe often hear.

To preface and explain, I am a transgender woman/female and I'm writing here today not to create any kind of argument or discord but because I am here to say that I think there are things that my side of the floor has gotten wrong.

I want to start from a position of saying that I can understand why some of you feel erased or afraid. I dont say that in a patronising way; I say that from a position of being fully periceved as female in society and I often to feel quite vunerable because of that in certain situations just like I imagine many of you do aswell.

I started down this road from hearing about how a 'A woman is person who says they are a woman'. I must admit I never quite got it. It makes no sense but yet, there are many transgender people and allies who say this like it has any kind of meaning. Just like when they also say that 'woman' is defined by a certain set of catagories etc. Its always bothered me and I didnt know why. For me, the more I have medically tranisitioned to female, the more Ive began to understand the word and defintion of female cannot be just removed from the term woman.

Now, I suspect this is where most of you reading this will be in decent agreement of. However I suspect what I say next will cause more issues. I believe myself to be female not just because of my physical aspect having been changed through medical transition (albeit its not a perfect process) but also because I believe my brain structure to have formed female in the sex differences between male and female likely at birth. There are quite numerous studies that do back this up to an okay but emerging degree and I am also aware that there also a few that dont say that exactly but say my brain formed in a kind of third way. Either way, I think it is clear from these studies that my brain developed differently to that of a male and it has manifested itself so I am quite closely alligned with being female.

To me, I feel like this makes a me kind of intersex person but perhaps in a different kind of way than we usually think of the term intersex. Though, through my medical transition obviously estrogen has, at least for me, solidified my mind to that much more towards female.

With this in mind, I find myself looking at the world as a woman but a woman who came with unique challenges and hurdles that are difficult to explain. For example, often I have been accused of saying its wrong that GRS gives me a vagina and have often been shouted at and saying im just sexualising it. However for me, the vagina isnt and wasnt the main source of my distress. The main source of my distress is that I will never have ovaries and will never have children and be a biological mother. I have never been interested in having a child as a male in anyway.

For me, it reminds me that I am not just a straight forward female and many will not accept me. After some deep reflection I think that I have also accepted that I will have to go through hurdles and I will have to remove my male form in such a succfient manner that I can be accepted by other women in certain areas. With that in mind I have also come to accept that self indentifcation shouldnlt be accepted. That tears at me because I wish I lived in that ideal world. But, as a woman who is only attracted to men, I understand frankly just how dangerous some of them can be. But ive come to the conclusion that if we keep pushing for this we are only making it harder for everyone and it will only lead to further division, more toxicity and we will just tear oursevles apart.

I do look at my rights from five years ago and I look at them now and see how they have reduced from prisons putting people such as as me in mens prisions, to the recent SC ruling, sports associations banning us. I do truly think that most women do and have historically accepted women like me but I also understand that came with agreements and understandings. Understandings which I think have been overstepped in the last ten years.

While I dont and will never accept calling me a man; I can understand why some of you that are reading this may have gotten fed up and stopped caring. I suppose what I am really trying to say is, can we all start again? If I can accept that women (including myself) need protections in some areas and I can accept the need for medicalising, the dropping of self identification, the need for due process in changing your sex legally can you accept that Im not a man? Can you accept that calling me certain things and the misgendering, using terms such as Trans identified Male is actually causing more harm than it is good?

Can we not as women actually just get our heads together and work out a decent solution? I do believe we might remain with some differences. For example I do believe a woman is a person who was born with a female gender identity by which I mean the overall average structure of the brain and therefore mind. And I do understand you will use a defintion to be defined by your anatomy. But I do believe that actually both of these can be true. While I cant be 100 percent true to your defintion I have tried to be because of where my defintion has led me and I understand how difficult that may be for someone who has all the correct anatomy to understand. But I have tried to understand how you feel so I am trying to ask for the same.

Finally, thank you for reading my long message. I am very nervous to be leaving it. Please can I ask you from refraining to calling me names and refering to me as a man, this is a request and not a demand. I have very much put myself out there with this and I hope that what is reflected back to me is the same spirit in which I wrote this.

Thank you

P.s I hovered over the 'Post' button for about five minutes before clicking it.

hmm, that kind of makes me regret this

I read your post.

i understand that as part of the process to appear female that you have developed an understanding of how people treat someone who presents that way in society.

i think that’s a good understanding to have.

the problem of words is much deeper than you imply though.

you say that you don’t want to be called a man essentially because you find it distressing. I hear that it makes you distressed.

but it’s not ok to force people to call you something you are not.

it’s not acceptable for someone who is white to self identify as someone who is black.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

it’s not acceptable to self identify your age - schooling, pensions etc are not self identify.

on the same basis, you are not a woman. And it’s not ok to try to compel others to accept you as one.

now I don’t care whether you choose to present as feminine or masculine. You can wear a skirt, anything you like that’s socially acceptable in the public place. Wear all the make up you like. Whatever. Choose your own name - fine, but please don’t change it three times a week it’s hard to keep up.

but other people are allowed to say what they want about whether you are a woman or not.

You feel as you feel..And before all the aggression abd invasion of women's spaces and sports there weren't any problems as far as I was concerned. However, women have been subject to a hell of a lot of misogynistic behaviour over the last 10 years or so regarding trans issues. I'm very much live and let live but I think it will take time for any trust to build up again. Very vulnerable women like hospital patients and rape survivors have been sacrificed at the altar of trans with very few men or trans people sticking up for them . I didn't think I would feel as pleased as I do at this ruling, women really needed this clarity.

Oh actually I can engage with this quite well and thank you for reading this and keeping it civil.

So I dont force people to refer to me as she and never have. Though, to be fair, people just tend to do this by default. I actually find it very rude to tell someone that and I find it very hard to tell people not to call me he. I do feel that it is my right as a person in society to inform people what not to call me because obviously that does fall under harrasment but as far as making people call me something no, I never have and I never will. It was a request only.

'it’s not acceptable for someone who is white to self identify as someone who is black' - This is something ive heard before and I find the point to be abit lacking scientifically and it to be a conflation.
I think that race is so much more genetically complex than sex is and I also think race is entirely pre determined by your ancestral genetics whereas sex is not. However, I do understand that going Male to Female carries with it certain sensitivities that cant just be ignored which is I why I said what I said in my intial post.
I dont also think that it is possible to have a 'black brain' and Im not aware of any real serious studies outside of what I imagine are far right circles that would ever find this.
However the studies on sex differences in the brain are real and we cant just ignore that as a reality. I admit it would have been a far better outcome for me to have had those structures changed in my brain but thats not even remotely possible. All I had availible to me was to change my sex as far and as imperfectly as possible.

'it’s not acceptable to self identify your age - schooling, pensions etc are not self identify.' I mean with respect, I dont really feel this is a valid point.

'on the same basis, you are not a woman. And it’s not ok to try to compel others to accept you as one.' I mean its fine for you to have that opinion thats why I wrote I know many will not accept me. However I do disagree and I do feel my brain/body misallignment cant just be ignored.

'now I don’t care whether you choose to present as feminine or masculine. You can wear a skirt, anything you like that’s socially acceptable in the public place. Wear all the make up you like. Whatever. Choose your own name - fine, but please don’t change it three times a week it’s hard to keep up.' - I mean you are just describing gender expression here which isnt really anything I refered to. I think expression is really just a social construction based loosely around biological realities. I dont think this really makes much difference to what my formed gender identity from birth actually is.

'but other people are allowed to say what they want about whether you are a woman or not.' To some degree. But we also live in a decent lawful society and I think that we have to be mindful of that and take that into account. For the record, I dont paticulary have too much concerns on what peoples personal beleifs are here. I think that most of my intial message was based around how we might make this work for everyone.

I think that the ruling sadly doesnt provide clarity. I feel that all it will do is increase the fighting. Because we havent come to any middle ground agreements and thats the thing I took most away from it.
It will take time to build up trust. I think people have been hurt on both sides and Im hoping that can stop.

I do truly think that most women do and have historically accepted women like me but I also understand that came with agreements and understandings. Understandings which I think have been overstepped in the last ten years.

I agree with this. In low-stakes situations like choice of toilets, we historically accepted men like you as it was kind and cost us little. We could usually tell but these would-be women were keeping their heads down, going by stealth. Neither causing trouble nor posturing around in some ridiculous femininity cosplay.

Can we not as women actually just get our heads together and work out a decent solution?

No, and I am genuinely sorry to say it to you. The conditional understanding we tacitly offered has been abused beyond belief. We gave an inch, and look at the miles that have been taken. No. Not again. Take it up with the activists who messed this up for you.

However ... I keep wondering whether to start a thread about the supposedly thorny issue of who uses which loo, and how do we know who's what? It's not difficult at all. Males who successfully 'pass' as female can carry on using whichever bog they want. Females who successfully pass as men should use the men's.

If you're in the Gents and someone challenges you, answer them in your real voice. If you're one of the nine out of ten sporting a penis, use a urinal. Challenge easily answered. Actually, I doubt many of you will be challenged - like most women who've regularly been drinking/clubbing, I've used men's loos several times and been treated considerately.

For higher-stakes situations where people get undressed, share sleeping quarters, need physical handling or are in competition, stick to your birth sex. A trans person crossing those boundaries deserves prosecution.

I mean this kindly but you are not female. You will never be female. The longer you continue to lie to yourself the worse physically and mentally your health will be. I am sorry you have been lied to buy friends, family, medical professionals and sections of society.

I think with respect your reply is quite a decent example of why this conversation and topic becomes so toxic.

Its hard to find it in me to reply to this with the care it requires but I will try.

I think that while im glad you agree with the first point of mine you replied to I think that the agreement is quickly lost. I think while its not suprising that you refered to me as a man it is saddening as you didnt actually need to add this part. Many of us, in fact, nearly all of us do cause no issues and in my case you would honestly have no idea I was a transgender female simply because of all the biological changes that have occured inside of me.

Secondly I do want to address this: 'If you're in the Gents and someone challenges you, answer them in your real voice.'
My real voice sits at a basline of 220 Hertz and is entirely female. I cannot really underline how impossible that it is for me to talk in my 'real voice'.

'For higher-stakes situations where people get undressed, share sleeping quarters, need physical handling or are in competition, stick to your birth sex. A trans person crossing those boundaries deserves prosecution.'
This I feel is quite extreme. But I also need time to process that someone would want to prosecute me for being myself.

I feel really that I find your reply troubling and im trying not to as im trying to engage with this fully and openly. But I feel that if you had your way with many of these views then it could put me in great threat and danger. While I am for the dropping of self ID and due process to changing your sex. I feel that people that go through this difficult process should be respected and I feel that if that is not met on the other side when its offered the division will only continue until all of us lose.

Its fine for you to have this opinion. But I have been through too much and learned too much about myself to think otherwise and I think I layed it out clearly in a way I hope made sense to everyone in a reasonable way.

I really want to support you to live in a way best for you.

However, the way that the trans community appears to have zero tolerance for anyone attempting to point out that proposed changes will have huge negative impacts for cis women is really, really off- putting.

With sports, the problem is that even if your brain is female, and even if you take hormones, you still have a Y chromosome. Cis women are really tired of being told that that doesn't bring advantages in sport, because we know it does.

I feel that if you had your way with many of these views then it could put me in great threat and danger.

It's interesting that you put it like this. "If you had your way" means "If I observed the law as it's always been and still is."

So you're just telling us you see yourself as beyond the law. You also see yourself as beyond Nature, evolution and biology. You ascribe to yourself the power to control others' thoughts and speech (or feel you should have that power, at least).

"Man" is the correct term for a male adult. It's a pity you don't like my saying so, but I'm not about to use words to mean their opposites. I've no idea how you'd even make that work! You'd have to rewrite everything that has ever been recorded since the dawn of writing!

How about finding a therapist who could support you in coming to terms with who you really are: a feminine male?

~ I meant to ask: what great threat and danger do you foresee to yourself by following the law concerning sex-segregated activities?

I actually agree with this.
However I do also think we cant lose sight of the fact that we are also dealing with a statisically and significantly marginilised group of people. While I do admit I avoid the worst of this due to my genetics and endocrine system being fortunate we cant lose sight of the fact that there are people who very much only do this out of predjudice.
This is why I wanted to talk more openly about and try to bring some walls down. Both sides are so caught in such a defensive stance I think its only going to end up benefiting the worst kinds of people in the end if it hasnt already.

I think with sport is complicated. Ive honestly read many of studies and often leave myself feeling more confused than when I go into it. The results are often conflicting and I think really we should just do things on a case by case basis like we do with intersex people. I think that having a default state of 'males are better' is just damaging though. I also think that we need to address that some sports are gendered and its just silly and demeaning to all women. Chess for example. Pool is another one. Darts. I think with Chess all we are admitting there is that men are smarter than us for X reason and that needs to stop.

But honestly, Im bad at sports. I dont play them or watch them and I leave that up to my boyfriend and thats often why I try not to talk about it when it relates to transgender people.

No, I feel youre putting alot of words in my mouth here.

'So you're just telling us you see yourself as beyond the law. You also see yourself as beyond Nature, evolution and biology. You ascribe to yourself the power to control others' thoughts and speech (or feel you should have that power, at least).' This for example isnt anything ive said and I really just think you need to reflect on that a little respectfully.

I suppose what I would say is that if actual laws were made that excluded me and stopped me living my life as basically who I am at this point then, then yes I would risk Prison/Death to keep being myself. I have thought about this before alot as I have read through the stories of transgender women living under the German Third Reich. Often then living openly as who they were resulted in eventually being sent to concentration camps and later dying there before the wars end.

Often I find myself not only having immense respect for these women but for any woman who could stand up to this kind of psychopathic society. Ive also thought alot about what I would do. And I feel I would be one of those women and I would likely be killed. I could I suppose change my clothes, dress like a man and maybe that might even work (Though the boobs and voice might actually just get me caught for being a trans male instead at this point) I think id just end up killing myself. I cant really describe to you what it is like being in my brain female but with a male form only that is immense torture. So yes, if laws were to be enacted like the German Third Reich did, I would risk prison and death because sometimes laws arent just and sometimes some people wont accept them.

So i think that, with that in mind, me seeing a therapist that lets say would try to convert my developed brain, would have no effect on me. You can see me as a feminine male if you like; I have no control over your thoughts and beliefs and nor do I want to but I dont agree and likely never will.

'~ I meant to ask: what great threat and danger do you foresee to yourself by following the law concerning sex-segregated activities?

sure so, Im at the same threat you would be. I have been sexually assaulted by a man before. I have been stalked before and men have been you know, just odd to me before like many women get. Either way, Im not going to win if harsh laws are imposed on me so I might aswell do the thing that I think is right.

You cannot claim to be reasonable and also claim that you have become female at the same time. We cannot possibly find any common ground or resolution with you if you claim you have become female.

Well actually if you read through my intial message.
I said that my brain has developed likely from birth as female with the sex differences in the brain being female or female resembled.
I didnt say that I became female but yes I have changed aspects of my sex devevlopment at this point which brings me much closer to female physically.

But we don't live in a society that punishes gender non-conformity. So that's a lot of catastrophising over nothing!

Sorry you've been sexually assaulted and stalked. As you say, that's an effect of being perceived as female in a patriarchal society.

Harsh laws are not being imposed on you.

The problem is, OP, many of us consider that we don't have have any kind of gender identity. A woman is just a female person, and no, sorry, you are not female. Female relates to your reproductive role, and you were born (and remain) a member of the sperm producing sex. Not one of us ever had the potential to father children.

If biologically male people use the words "women" and "female" (which I think is even worse) to describe themselves, it leaves us entirely without words to describe what we are.

It is an act of oppression, whether you see it that way or not.

For me it has echoes of a colonial power banning the colonised people from speaking their own language in a deliberate attempt to make that language extinct and deprive the people who once spoke it of their cultural heritage.

Can you name any of these trans women who were murdered by the Third Reich?

Because I've only ever seen four or five named, and in almost all cases they were also Jewish or homosexual.

See the problem with this specifcally: 'many of us consider that we don't have have any kind of gender identity'
Is that it just doesnt meet up to scientific psychological understanding that goes back quite a long time with many studies on this subject. It also exposes a problem that most people dont also realise in that it means sexual identity doesnt exist either as the same studies and evidence are mostly the same for both gender identity and sexual indentity.

So let me put this another way and maybe you might gain a different point of view: If everyone you ever heard about was heterosexual you wouldnlt know what homosexual was. So youd think that sexual indentity doesnt actually exist as youve never actually had to question it. The problem of course is that if you are homosexual you have questioned it and youd realise what sex you are doesnt always allign with what sex youre attracted to.

A similar and more misunderstood thing happens with transgender people and gender identity and sadly we go through the same process homosexual people do which is not being believed. And amazingly in a very similar way that reflects how we view sex in our culture. Male homosexuals and Transgender women who were Male/Men are treated with disgust while lesbians and transgender males are treated with erasure.

While I do understand you fully allign with your birth sex and your mind within that sex a few of arent able to do that and have to follow a path that is sadly often filled with just awful experiences. So I think your definition is valid but I also, as I said in my intial message, think mine is aswell and I have tried my best to live up to what your defintion is. Think of it in a similar way to a person moving to the UK say from India and trying really hard to assimilate to british. Some will say they will never be british but thankfully not all of us do this. Incidentially, my boyfriends hertiage comes from that area of the world and we often liken our experiences in the culture as similar which is 'never quite being enough'.

Yes I agree and I love gender non comformity even if I dont practice it myself (well from my perspective I guess). But that gender non conformaty isnt the same as medicall transitioning. I really do wish it was just that simple for me though but the biological changes are just too apparent at this point.

So the real issue with blanket exlcusion of women like me from single sex spaces is that it does potentially leave me in dangerous situations and ive obviously been thinking about that alot recently.

'Sorry you've been sexually assaulted and stalked. As you say, that's an effect of being perceived as female in a patriarchal society.'
Thank you, that is something I understand fully.

I believe my brain structure to have formed female in the sex differences between male and female likely at birth. There are quite numerous studies that do back this up to an okay but emerging degree and I am also aware that there also a few that dont say that exactly but say my brain formed in a kind of third way. Either way, I think it is clear from these studies that my brain developed differently to that of a male and it has manifested itself so I am quite closely alligned with being female.

The thing is, if I woke up tomorrow with my same brain and the body of a man (Quantum Leap-style), there is absolutely zero chance that I would use women's toilets/changing rooms service etc.

I might feel very odd using the men's toilets, and may prefer a private cubicle where possible, but it would be inconceivable to cause distress to other women by entering the women's single sex spaces.

Even if I modified my body, I still wouldn't want to use the women's spaces as it would cause distress to some women.

Why do transwomen think that they have the right to access women's spaces even if hypothetically they were to have a female brain? Is it a lack of empathy?

It's a shame transwomen who claim to identify as women, rarely seem to identify with women.

The science behind male/female brains has been pretty widely debunked.

Um I mean, my own research on this topic is still on going as I think it is in general on this subject.
However a german court did recognise that transgender people were victims of the Haulocaust a few years back which I thought was pretty landmark.
There obviously wont be many cases as there just isnt many of us in general anyway. But really I think even one or two is still disgusting.
https://mjhnyc.org/events/transgender-experiences-in-weimar-and-nazi-germany/

Its also worth mentioning that people who were really trans women were likely documented as Homosexual as The Nazis didnt believe that gender identity was valid or real and deemed them all men and homosexual. So thats just what makes this so much harder to look into.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/transgender-life-and-persecution-under-the-nazi-state-gutachten-on-the-vollbrecht-case/0779A24B130C4F0CA64DB639FA6DBF46

Honestly, I find alot of it hard to read through as it obviously effects me in a more profound way if I can say that.

So the real issue with blanket exlcusion of women like me from single sex spaces is that it does potentially leave me in dangerous situations and ive obviously been thinking about that alot recently.
'Sorry you've been sexually assaulted and stalked. As you say, that's an effect of being perceived as female in a patriarchal society.'
Thank you, that is something I understand fully.

You are not excluded from single sex spaces. You are excluded from women's spaces because you are biologically male.

Why is the fact that you have a modified your body in such a way that you now feel that you may be threatened in the male single sex facilities, a problem for women to solve?