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.

No, the irony is that trans people say this, when in fact nobody is trying to erase trans people but you are trying to erase women.

Just like you said in this very thread - without knowing or apparently caring whether you might be talking to a Jewish person - that trans women were the biggest victims of the Holocaust.

Out of women and trans people, which group is literally trying to deny the other a word for itself or the right to exist as a distinct category in law?

That's right. It's trans people. It's you.

You are collectively throwing your toys out of the pram because the Supreme Court held that female people exist as a distinct category in law which does not include any members of your sex, with or without a piece of paper saying they are women.

I have asked you multiple times on this thread whether you believe that we should be allowed to have a word for our biological sex class which does not include you, and you have declined to answer. I have to take that lack of response as a "no".

I mean, this is all so convincing, that it’s a shame OP couldn’t have testified before the Supreme Court.

@FairAdvocate
You were born male you went through male puberty
Later you went through female puberty
Also 10 years of menopause
You still have periods (ghost)
You still want to adopt a child.
Lack of logic Pal, does not hold together.

I have been engaging with them for about 5 hours.
Im tired. Im Sorry.
Thank you for calling my boyfriend gay and saying it wasnt rude scarlet.
I really am done this time cause ima bout to COLLAPSE 😂

Love you all even if you hate me or whatever thing you come up with.
I suppose in conclusion id say about 30 percent of people engaged me in an okay spirit. But I do feel that at this point, conceding anything might actually turn out to be pointless and I get the feeling here nothing will ever be enough for some of you in the same way my boyfriend will never really be enough for the people who say he can never be british.

I hope that one day we (including me) can be better at this.
Much Love and Peace xxx

I don’t need to, mate. I’ve met lots just like you.

Would you mind engaging with the question about whether you think we should be allowed to have a word for our sex class which doesn't include you?

Yeah, dunno about you girls, but I’m convinced, @FairAdvocate has made me so regret fighting for women’s rights. I mean, I’ve made some men very sad and I need to repent now. I must not have been womanning right at all. I’m off to punish myself with 3 chapters of Judith Butler.

I think you believe you are being considerate and helpful, but even the title of your thread is annoying. A conciliatory conversation on gender. We've tried that, and it got us to the point where our rights were taken. And not just any rights, but our rights that we (and our foremothers) fought hard for - our right to spaces away from men; our right to use public areas knowing we had places for bodily functions such as urinating, changing period products etc.; our sports; our right to be away from men when we'd be assaulted. All of that gone, and now we have to work to get it back.

And we are, quite frankly, fucking furious. So, you coming along with your pseudo-scientific shite about different brains, and how race is more complicated than sex etc. is just infuriating.

I'd ask you to reflect on how patronising you are being. And you may pass, but 99.9% of transwomen don't. And passing doesn't matter - we don't want men in the spaces we fought for, the spaces that allow us to be part of society.

If you were actually a woman you'd understand that, and find your own solutions - that's what we had to do

I'm sorry, you think skin colour is more genetically complex than sex?? 😂

He slid from colonialism to full on Manifest Destiny and eradication.

Don’t. I don’t think most biological women are as hostile towards trans people.

Sites like this tend to bring out aggressive people on both sides of the issue.

Glad I am not the only one who picked up on that one 😂

I refuse to take the bait of a mansplaining wannabe woman who is a man, telling us how we should respond to him.

My only comment is to say begone.

I reckon the mental health/ASD levels in trans identified men/women is 100%. If it isn't it is undiagnosed. That's where they need to go next for help and validation. I don't care what anyone thinks, it is not normal by any stretch, and I've had enough of it now.

Power is shifting back to biological women. It hasn't come a day too soon. Deal with it.

Why does the sample size not being identical matter?
The whole point of percentages and ratios is to compare different sized groups of things.
If there are 30 million men, 30 million women in the UK and 48,000 transwomen with a GRC or whatever that number comes from then why would you reduce the sample groups of 30,000,000 down to 50,000 to match the size of the smaller group? That would make the data less accurate, not more accurate. Whole population data is always more accurate than samples.

It’s also really important to look at sub groups of people actually affected by different decisions and different contexts. I fully appreciate that transwomen are at heightened risk of sexual assault compared to men. But that does not mean it’s acceptable to house transwomen prisoners with female prisoners. The stats for the proportion of transwomen in prison who are sexually abusive towards women will not match the stats for the proportion of transwomen in the general population who pose a risk of sexual violence towards women. And if transwomen are allowed to be housed with women in a women’s prison then the stats will again be skewed because some shitty men who would not have thought to transition but want access to women will take advantage too. The only solution to protect the very vulnerable population of female (as in sex not gender) prisoners is to exclude prisoners of male sex, including transgender women. Now once that has been established, then clearly it’s also not acceptable for transgender women to be housed with men in male prisons because they will be at an unacceptable risk of sexual violence from the male (sex+gender) prison population. So a safe space needs to be established for transwomen prisoners - perhaps a separate wing within the men’s prison. Unfortunately this would mean that those transwomen prisoners may feel less accepted by society as female. But I do think the safety of everyone involved needs to come first. The same logic applies to rape crisis centers and women’s refuges. Transwomen need these services too, but unfortunately for them, including them in the definition of women in these situations makes the groups a target for sexually or physically abusive men (as in sec and gender) and does not acknowledge that women may feel uncomfortable or unsafe around transwomen as well as men in these especially vulnerable situations. So separate services must be established for transwomen.
I’m not quite sure what should be established for transmen in these situations. I don’t know whether genderqueer services would suit - for example housing transmen and transwomen together in prisons or providing gender queer support groups through rape crisis services. I think transgender people need to be listened to for their opinions on that question. I do appreciate that that’s not an easy conversation to have when transwomen’s preference of joining services for women (sex+gender) has to be set aside as infeasible first.

The gendered brains thing is a distraction. It doesn't matter how OP feels in her personal life. Her gender affects no one when she does not attempt to dismantle sex based rights and protections.

What does matter is the preservation of sex (not gender) based rights and equality.

Females have fought hard and long in order to have access to full participation in society. It is very common for trans activists to have little appreciation of how switching to a gender - based system erodes female (sex) safety and freedoms.

I work for a non profit that supports women who experience domestic violence and control. So the opposite of naive on the most dangerous threats to women’s safety. (Hint, it’s not the trans community)

I think what you will see in the wake of the Supreme Court judgment is more women saying out loud that of course trans women are not women, they never believed that to be true, but were forced to pretend that was what they believed for fear of repercussions.

Yes so much kindness and respect on this thread! And all the others over the past few days!

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

The way forward is for you to not actually put yourself into situations "where people get undressed, share sleeping quarters, need physical handling or are in competition".
i.e. don't enter women's sports. Don't go into jobs and roles reserved for women, e.g. intimate care or body searches. Don't go into situations where you are expected to share a bedroom with women.
For example, if an employer sent you off to a conference and booked you into a twin hotel room with a female colleague, just explain to the employer that as you are a transwoman this is not appropriate and you need a single room.

If you steer clear of these situations, then I can't see how you would feel "in great threat and danger" in your life.

I've read about half of these messages (not time to read them all) and found it interesting. It's a shame there were some aggressive comments, which are understandable but not helpful. On balance, I found the feminist arguments (when put calmly, which is a bit ironic!) more compelling. Thanks for some well reasoned discussion.

Nobody said it was. That doesn't mean we aren't entitled to have words and spaces for ourselves which do not include any members of the opposite sex.

I reject the premise that you are female or have a female brain. Now what?

The fact that you don't engage with the content of my posts tells me you have no way to defend your assertions.

You aren't doing women a favour by staying out of our spaces or asking for higher barriers to entry when it comes to men's self-proclaimed womanhood. Sex is material and observable, and has downstream effects on the lives of women. Women's single sex rights and spaces were conceived primarily on account of our vulnerability to male predation. They are not a refuge for men who would rather look like women or who feel distressed that they were born male. Why should we erase ourselves as a sex class to accommodate your indeterminate gender identity?

Please could you counter the points I'm making instead of groping about me making them?

Your question about what this nebulous male entitlement is is ironic. You are privilege blind and your expectation that you be rewarded with an honorary woman badge in recognition for your efforts to emulate one while turning a deaf ear to women who tell you otherwise (paying no mind to the reasons your assertion harms women) is a prime example of said entitlement.

You will never feel how a woman feels being a woman, your concept of your own femaleness is an approximation filtered through your male perception.

I dont agree with what happened there. Not much else I can add.

Well, admitting that women don't go round in baying mobs, calling for the deaths of trans people who claim to be women, much less surround their conference room screaming, display signs with vile abuse and even less than that, assault and seriously injured pension aged men who claim to be women.

The dam has finally burst. After years of being told that we're terribly transphobic and bigoted if we say out loud what we all know to be true - that trans women are not women - the Supreme Court has made it OK to say that.

Blame organisations like Stonewall who tried to deny women their own reality for so long.