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.

“Ghost period” Arf. Tell me you’re playing at being a woman without etc etc

Look, I understand you may have gone through similar oppressions - male/sexual violence or the threat of it, discrimination and so on but that doesn’t make you a woman either. And it’s frankly insulting that you think this makes us the same. A bit like Dylan Mulvaney skipping about - it’s all just cos playing.

We’re not defined by our oppression - that arises from our sex. Just as we’re not defined by clothes. Now you clearly believe you are female so I guess you’re not going to agree but just because some aspects of your life (appearance, oppression) look
like a woman’s life, you’re still not a woman.

it really is just all in your head. And I don’t mean your theoretical female brain. You’ve got a very strong faith going on in there, but I don’t have to believe the same thing. And you can’t force me to.

Honestly, at this point you’re having as much impact as someone standing in the high street on Saturday morning handing out leaflets saying I’m going to hell. I’m never going to take your leaflet. I just don’t believe what you’re saying.

Because the females present feel empowered to call security.

A digression of sorts: Gender identity. What the fuck is it?

I've read reams about it, watched videos, and still no-one's defined it. Feeling like your mind / soul / inner self is misaligned with your gender (most common claim) is nonsense because nobody feels fully aligned with sex-role stereotypes. I'd be surprised if even half of people feel aligned with half of the stereotypes for their sex.

Feeling misaligned with the sex of your body I can envisage a little better, mainly because I had dysmorphic anorexia in my teens - but I've been told off for trying to compare gender dysphoria with a delusional state, so let's stick with sex. I can't say I feel aligned with having a female body, it just is what it is. I don't go around feeling great about being a woman. On good days I feel great about being a person.

My female body's done me no favours: I underwent huge personality shifts during puberty and menopause, had absolute bastard periods with unpredictable flooding in public, miscarried six times and menopause dragged on for 12 years. I am not a 'feminine' person and, while I'm not 'masculine' either, my sturdy build means I look like Grayson Perry if I wear frills.

None of this is my identity. I'm not keen on the 21st-century obsession with identity, actually. Self-knowledge is a rare and valuable thing, but it is not self-definition. That strikes me as limiting, like sticking yourself in a box and slapping a label on it. Why restrict your own horizons? Anyway ...

Back to my sturdy build 😳 I'm 5'8", quite tall for an English woman of my generation; I've often felt envious of petite women, especially delicate little women who unconsciously bring out the protective instinct in others (including me!) People look to tall, rectangular individuals like me for help, not to be helped. I'd quite like a break from this but there's no changing my body type.

My height and bone structure are, like my sex, simply facts. They're very significant aspects of who & what I am, but I didn't choose them - and I can't choose to change them. I mean, I could "identify as" petite, but where the hell would that get me? All the short women would be furious if I managed to get petite clothing ranges made in my size, and I still wouldn't be able to look appealingly up at people unless I crouched down to do it ...

As it goes, I'm 100% sure MOST people don't have an identity, gender or otherwise, in the way this seems to be meant. My name, sex, age, height, skin colour, nationality, etc are distinct features of my 'identity' as it is meant on official forms. They identify me but they don't define me.

So I have no fucking idea what people are on about with their goddamn identities. Anyone care to explain? OP??

Most of us don't accept the validity of the concept of misgendering.

Women everywhere to the people vilifying us for fighting for our rights…
I am only resolved to act in a manner which will constitute my own happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."

I spent ten years searching online and all there was was an Australian study that wasn't conclusive. The consensus was that the lived experience of being trans itself can alter brains, which of course it can.

I don't have free time to search again. If there is new evidence, please show us. To make such terrifying, dangerous and disturbing claims about the most oppressed group of human beings in history – claims to have seen evidence to prove the claims that have been used to justify their oppression and abuse for centuries – is very frightening and comes with a lot of moral responsibility.

If I were to claim there is emerging evidence that actually there is scientific evidence of a basis in truth for claims made about and used to justify discrimination, abuse, oppression and killings of members of a certain group, surely you'd expect me to be able to back this up?

Really? Because I've been trying and can't seem to find any proper academic, peer reviewed type studies. I don't disbelieve you but these are pretty big claims to be making without proper evidence

Actually thank you for this reply. This is genuinely the spirit I was trying to engage with throughout so thank you it means so much.

'The problem is that I can't agree to disagree on whether you're a woman, because you're not. And I am sorry to put that so bluntly, but you're the one forcing this discussion point by insisting that you are.
It's like asking me to agree to disagree that a dog is a cat.
You might be living as a woman. But you're not a woman. Taking oestrogen doesn't make you a woman.'

The thing is I actually completly understand how and why you think this. I mean honestly there was a time before I transitioned I probably thought this to. I dont dispute the anatomy. I dont dispute your defintion of a woman or of a female. I am abit chaotic but I do genuinely love biology and part of this process for me has been learning the differences between male and female.

I thought for a very long time about what makes me a woman. How can I be a woman? I never resonated with 'because I feel I am one'. For a long time I never had a good answer even when people were asking 'What is a woman?' everywhere. And then I asked myself 'Why do I want to change my sex and basically no one else does?' 'Why do, when I look at the changes estrogen would produce for my then totally male body feel...excited and happy when I should feel horrified?' I knew I wasnt ill. I was fine.

And that sat with me for quite a long while. Early on I cared more about trans rights than womens rights. I was..changing, still looking male. Then I started to not look and not feel that way anyway. I started to see things as a female from a female perspective. Albiet, a lesser student than yourself im sure. And over time Ive realised that my mind has always been this way. When I was 8 I used to fall asleep pretending I was a girl and that frightened me and I never spoke about it to anyone. When I was 14 and I had male puberty I went into years of lenghty episodes of depression. I never accepted what had happened to me because it was wrong and I hated that it was wrong. I used to avoid mirrors, photographs, everything. I didnt think I could do anything about it. I didnt know about hormones or anything. I cant explain to you the despair of not having answers to so many important things. I was a dead person.

The thing is I know Ill never be as good as you. I know ill never be as perfect as you are because I went through something that was so biologically wrong and messed up. Its suprises me so much to hear you say I think Im a better woman than you are. And maybe it really highlights why we should talk instead of fight. Ive had to fight so hard to be a woman and in the words of Simone De Beauvoir 'Become a woman'. I know im stretching the limits of what she meant but it meant that to me.

Ive been able to put so much right and have the body, the voice and the mind I was always supposed to have and Im in so many photographs now and I dont want to miss a moment. I dont have all the answers on what causes this. I dont. I know that somehow in my mind in some unchangable way that I am female and I would do anything for a do over and to get my body correct from the start.

I completly understand the strength of the emotion in this - I share it. I really do. I dont want to erase you, I dont want to do anything like that. I dont want to disagree with your defintion because I dont. But I do think and I always will think that defintion is a starting point and not an end point. We can add things to that in some small circumstances for such a small amount of people. Im not saying that shouldnlt come with due process but I am saying that fundemntally not to try make that work leads us down roads that has made us all monsters.

Im sorry this was long and doesnt completly answer everything but I feel its important to start engaging these strong emotions into love and not hate.

No. It is coherent. Because you are not prevented entering spaces for females because you are trans. You are prohibited from those spaces because you are male. You said you came on here looking for conciliation. What exactly are you conceding here? Because it sounds like the same male entitlement: you are exceptional and deserve access and if we say no that is discrimination. Is it the case that you are just expecting us to give way because you say you are “true trans”. Is that what you mean by conciliation?

Sorry pal, you are a bloke. As am I.

At the point of conception (or almost immediately after) you developed male cells. Every cell in your body will show that it is male if it is analysed. Not one of them has changed to female.
There can be no compromise or middle way. Try reading Robert Winston. Either male or female. Your life style has all been a matter your choice.
Were you on MN in the old days of the Sex Chat thread? Did you 'chat' and sext a woman to get her to masturbate thinking she was chatting to another woman. Is that why you think you are so like a woman. Was that one of your tests? [BTW you were probably sexting another bloke]

My harsher opinion is that so much of this Trans 'debate' is merely spiteful Cosplay with real victims such as Forstater, Stock and Phoenix. Apologise to them first.
My advice is give it up. Choose another impossible feature of science to change. Like gravity, try and negotiate that for you and your mates it is not 32f/per sec/per sec but slightly less.

You don't see things from a female perspective though.

That comes across very clearly in your posts.

You do everything you possibly can to avoid seeing things from a female perspective, in fact.

It's a shame that the very first comment showed no empathy, understanding or consideration at all. I hope that other people will be a bit more thoughtful and constructive.

Its suprises me so much to hear you say I think Im a better woman than you are.

Thats not what the poster meant. We’ve been told that TWs are ‘better women’ - I remember India W being shocked that JK Rowling’s famous lunch included women with very short hair, who, in India’s opinion, didn’t look like women at all. Completely missing the point, obviously.

We’ve also had those charming Insta / TikTok reels of TWs promising to seduce women’s husbands in the men’s toilets.

Being told something is very different from thinking it.

Female sports have a fraction of the budget of male sports Elite women come up from humbler ranks, if there are boys outshining them, some will be missed. Every boy who's there because his feelings tell him he belongs there does so at the cost of the girls. He's displacing girls who, especially, in contact sports, would excuse themselves rather than risk injury by playing with him or worse, risk social censure by voicing their concerns.

Having males at any level will have a ripple effect, robbing actual girls of sporting opportunities. As you noted, athletic differences become apparent much before puberty. Boys also mature later and don't have to deal with periods. If there's a move to mixed sex teams at rookie levels, it leaves even less to go around where girls' sports are concerned.

Show evidence that lesbians actually want transwomen in their groups and spaces?

And remember one lesbian cannot speak for all lesbians.

Go watch Martina Navraterolva (sorry about my spelling, famous tennis player, and very brave woman) interview with the times on womans sports.

No you don't have a period of any kind nor can you be a mother. I realise now that you're trolling by the fact you think it's ok to tell women you plan to be a mother.

it was a bit tone deaf of you … you claim you have a ‘female brain’ but it’s a very male thinking one… you were doing the very male thing of explaining ‘your point’ to women and how us women should act on and see ‘your point.’

Most women have empathy for their fellow women.
they understand their fears, and feelings because mostly it’s based on shared experiences as females… experience that are from childhood.

for you to proclaim that we should just ‘accept’ your stance because, you say so, it’s overwhelmingly arrogant, because you’re not oppressed, you still maintain the inherent rights you were born with, as a male… whether you care to believe or admit that or not.

maybe do some self reflection to understand why women who have been doxxed, cancelled, assaulted, sacked, blamed, demeaned, made to feel and be ‘lesser’ to a man who proclaims he’s female … just for holding on to the few rights we have got in a world of patriarchy and misogyny … are feeling bitter and more than a tad pissed off!!

🫂 Puberty is hard on girls. I started hunching to hide my budding breasts from the prying eyes of sleazy men. Sexual harassment (old men groping, "accidentally" poking, one time a man started pressing himself into my back while I was queueing in a museum during a school trip, I was 10. Too shocked to react, I have more incidents but don't want to list) had started while I was still a child. I dreaded the additional attention my changing body would bring.

These people don't understand the level of scrutiny girls are subjected to from the time they are born. Men going out of there way to tell us when we look tired or unf-able or "pretty but just not my type" (I didn't ask, he was my ex bf's mate) because how dare we subject them to the sight of an unf-able female body? They don't understand the anxiety that ageing will lead to us being casually, routinely dehumanised.

I told a trans id man that I don't have a gender identity does that mean I stop being a woman? He said it does. The only requirement to be a woman is have a female gender identity. That's how men like him were women but women like me aren't. I suspect this movement attracts more than its fair share of gullible and dim-witted youngsters who can't wrap their head around simple concepts such as per capita rates of criminality or linear logic like erasing women as a sex class destroys the raison d'etre for our sex based rights and protections. They parrot the preposterous Butlerian line that expanding our definitions to accommodate trans "women" doesn't make us any less female.

@FairAdvocate There is little about your updates that makes sense, I think that your wish to adopt a child is merely to use as a prop to your argument. In itself that is sufficient to prove your unsuitability.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom Thanks - you made a really interesting point when you compared it to colonialism; I'd never really thought of it that way. I know very little about trans issues and most discussions quickly descend into shouting matches where you're not allowed to ask an honest question. I'm always interested to learn. I will continue to read and think.

Um yeah, thats alot for me to reply to me.
'A digression of sorts: Gender identity. What the fuck is it?'
Theres actually quite alot of studies on it actually. I spoke to someone at length about it who had a degree in psychology specialsing in this area.
I wish I had him present now but he went through so much of it with me and I was suprised just how vast it was actually.

'I've read reams about it, watched videos, and still no-one's defined it. Feeling like your mind / soul / inner self is misaligned with your gender (most common claim) is nonsense because nobody feels fully aligned with sex-role stereotypes. I'd be surprised if even half of people feel aligned with half of the stereotypes for their sex.'
I think the real problem is that there is no absolute answer in a way. I mean, I think that there is but I dont think we have found it yet. But you know, we havent found it for gay people either but we still accept them and believe them you know?
I will say for me, its not a stereotype. Its hard for me to explain because well, you feel female because you are one. For me, I am one because something in my brain indicates to me that I am one. Like for example, Ive always held myself to female beauty standards. Not out of expression but out of default. Why that is I wish I could answer I really do. When I looked at my penis I knew it was wrong. Why? 'Because I am a female'. I cant explain it more than that because thats kind of the core thought.

' I can't say I feel aligned with having a female body, it just is what it is. I don't go around feeling great about being a woman. On good days I feel great about being a person.' I think I see this differently. I feel alligned with my female body because I know what its like for that to be gone. I do feel good about being a woman and I appricaite it so much because I know what it feels like when thats gone. I know the feeling of deadness that happens and I never miss a moment and will never miss a moment.

'My female body's done me no favours: I underwent huge personality shifts during puberty and menopause, had absolute bastard periods with unpredictable flooding in public, miscarried six times and menopause dragged on for 12 years.' Jesus, Im sorry. Thats shit. Genuinely.
Im starting to realise that im probably one of the youngest people in this thread.

'None of this is my identity. I'm not keen on the 21st-century obsession with identity, actually. I do understand that feeling but I think you can afford to ignore your identity abit when youve not gone through what ive gone through with it.

'My height and bone structure are, like my sex, simply facts. They're very significant aspects of who & what I am, but I didn't choose them - and I can't choose to change them.' I think that bone structure can be complicated as youve just mentioned. For example I actually have very wide hips. My body shape is an 'hourglass' shape and doesnt really look very male at all. Though I think you can shape for example had you developed a full male beard and body hair on par with a man you would probably find it harder to see yourself as a woman. I think again, it comes down to never really having to think about it too much.

'As it goes, I'm 100% sure MOST people don't have an identity, gender or otherwise, in the way this seems to be meant. My name, sex, age, height, skin colour, nationality, etc are distinct features of my 'identity' as it is meant on official forms. They identify me but they don't define me.'

I think that everyone has an identity. I think that its just some people have to think about it more than others. I think when you are trans you actually are forced to think about it in quite a hard way and I dont think you can just ignore it. I think again, if you started looking like a man and your body and sex chararistics started to reflect that youd also think about it much more because it would cause you distress. I think that ultimately where most people line up a small amount of us just dont.

Apologies for the less good reply, I have been doing this hours and im flagging.

I actually find what youve said here completly disgusting

'They parrot the preposterous Butlerian line that expanding our definitions to accommodate trans "women" doesn't make us any less female.'

It doesnt. And again ive tried to make this a discussion that avoids terms like Trans Identified men and youve said this several times so I dont really think youre in keeping with the spirit honestly.

You've misgendered yourself. We've just refused to play along.

I'm not sure what the point of this is - OP says he wants dialogue but only on the grounds that he's accepted as a woman, not a transwoman, a biological woman, with a female brain, and ghost periods.