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.

I’m happier having the freedom of speech to call a man a man, and for genderists to be able to use the fringe ideological jargon that pertains to their world view, because it’s largely meaningless.

I tend to just avoid using sexed pronouns at all when talking about trans people, unless I'm referring to a rapist, in which case like hell am I pretending he's not a man.

I'm pretty good at it now.

I completely accept that you feel being referred to in a certain way attempts to rewrite your reality, and it’s reasonable to then reject that.

But, referring to trans women as he rewrites what they recognise as their reality. Whether people agree with that reality is a different matter.

I’ll save us all the ongoing debate - I’m a believer in being nicer to each other. I fall into the #BeKind camp, because I fail to see why we’d be anything else. I am aware that others see reason to not be, but I never see a reason to intentionally hurt someone.

I also believe that comfort and wellbeing is an everyone problem. The judgment is what it is, but saying the solution for trans people isn’t our problem and dismissing it offhand doesn’t feel fair to me.

Okay, you don’t want them in your space, but I think it only right to support them in their discomfort with that. I don’t personally feel comfortable with “get out, who cares where.”

All this and the experience and understanding of living in a woman’s body through those year’s of changes. How we often care for other women through those changes and years. The true vulnerability of elderly women and the substandard gynaecological care they so often receive.

Female puberty, painful heavy periods, fibroids, contraception, pregnancy and pregnancy loss or infertility, childbirth and associated injuries and surgeries. Persistent UTIs and prolapses. Smear tests, mammograms, colonoscopies, cancer, hysterectomies, perimenopause / menopause. Hip replacements and on and on and on.

I just… I’ve kind of had enough of having to be kind to everyone.

So if women are supporting trans people, who was and is supporting women? It’s not transpeople, it’s not men. So who? Why is it women’s job to support transpeople? Where is our support? We’re not their mums. Not our job. We have enough to do supporting women.

OK, but if we say, "We'll support your campaign for your own spaces" and they say, "No, trans women are women and belong in women's spaces", then what?

At what point do you think it is OK to just say, "Nope. Not my circus, not my monkeys, my patience has run out."

I’m not anyone’s mum, doesn’t mean I can’t be supportive of anyone?

It’s really not my job to care about anyone, but it’s also not difficult.

Women can support people outside of their biology, I assume.

Totally not the point of the thread, but Yad Vashem estimate there about about 1.2 million names still unknown from the 6million. That's about 20% of the Jewish victims still un named.

So most are known. But the amount that aren't is still a lot. Tragic

Not sure, genuinely. Because I’ve not ran out of patience with it yet, so can’t say if it ever will.

I’m kind of an all monkeys sort of woman!

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for correcting me.

Yes women can support anyone. But surely support should be mutual? Or are you expecting women to do extra free emotional labour just because they’re women and that’s what women should do? In that case, I presume as you believe TWAW, you’ll be telling them it’s their job to support women. Or maybe, if TWAW, they can use their womanly empathy to support each other,and women will support women.

No one has said that you can’t support, like or coddle this group of males or any others. You obviously think they’re hard done by. You do you. Other women don’t have to though.

Argh autocorrect - colposcopy!!

I think some of us spent quite a long time "talking to trans people" and found we were met with endless demands for empathy but absolutely nothing coming back the other way. And sometimes rape and death threats from the same people demanding empathy.

If you've joined the debate more recently then you might still have some reserves in the tank!

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Support should be mutual.

I don’t necessarily agree with the SSS debate, but law is law so I believe that women are as responsible for supporting trans women to move into a different space, as trans women are for moving.

Why, though? Why aren’t men just as responsible (actually, more so)?

So why are transwomen not expected to support women? Where has their support been? Surely transwomen can support people outside their biology? Or is it just women expected to be nice? How come transwomen get to issue rape, death and assault threats and women are still expected to be nice? How come transwomen get to call women vile names and hurl abuse but women are still expected to be nice? Where is this mutual support?

And I disagree. These male people do not have any legitimate claim on women’s spaces. So I’m simply expecting them to leave. They shouldn’t be there. It’s not actually my job, or any other women’s, to sort everything out for them, whatever you or they might think. And if you think that’s why they don’t want to leave women’s spaces alone, you really are missing key elements of what’s going on here.

I think there’s a double standard, in honesty.

I disagree.

We talk about the erasure of women but OP was told she’s not being erased.

OP is not being erased, OP is a transwoman a member of the male sex class that is true and accepted, that is not erasure in any way shape or form.

We call the use of “cis” abusive, but don’t acknowledge her request to be called, her. Or just not he.

There is zero equivalence with the term 'cis' being applied to women - a term no woman asked for but was just imposed on us - and the use of male pronouns for a male.

We talk about women’s rights, and feelings, but won’t accept that OP may feel differently in her own situation. That’s “not our problem.” Okay, fine, but then you can’t ask her to consider your “problem.”

The OP may well feel differently and yes, it is not our problem. As for asking for our 'problems' to be considered we have been doing that politely and reasonably for years and at no time have we been listened to or considered by the trans population or their activists and allies instead we were treated to reams and reams of abuse, mocking and violence. The OP is still not prepared to consider what we are saying.

A post yesterday rightly pointed out that there’s no minimum threshold for rape, but then today someone is saying “I believe there’s only 5/6 trans Holocaust victims.” What do you mean, only.
Things like that!

The holocaust being brought into play by the OP was utterly offensive.

They are expected to, certainly in my view.

Nobody is expected to think it’s reasonable to send death threats and call people vile names.

I think this is the thing. I would object less to the forced teaming with trans women if I got even the slightest vibe that they see us as fully human. But the only women they seem to actually like are the ones who call themselves "cis" and declare themselves to be trans allies.

As for the rest of us, well, I think we can die in a grease fire as far as they are concerned. They veer between calling us misogynistic slurs and telling us what evil bigots we are, sometimes going further and actually threatening to harm us, gloating about the fact that they are in our spaces and there's nothing we can do about it, and then suddenly claiming that they are so oppressed by us and they're so afraid about how we will treat them now that the Supreme Court has effectively declared open season on trans people.

Which rather begs the question, if they hate us so much and think we are such a threat to them, why do they even want to share these spaces with us?

To me the solution seems obvious. Trans women and female "trans allies" seem to love each other's company and want to share the same spaces. Neither of these groups appear to like or have any compassion for women who want and need single sex spaces.

So why can there not be an "inclusive, TQ+allies" space, where trans women and women who believe that TWAW can be together, leaving a female only space for those who need it?

Another day, another bloke dropping in to tell off the silly mean mummies, getting challenged and storming off back to Reddit?

I do not think the TQ+ lobby got that memo.

I see your messages saying women should support TW @SleeplessInWherever amd my analogy is this.
a woman is being abused by her partner, with vile abuse, death threats, physical violence. She escapes her abuser and he is told he cannot be where she is, instead of praising her for escaping, people tell her she’s evil for wanting him to be away from her and it’s her job to support him as her denying him her presence makes him upset. Why would it be her job to support someone who has abused her?

I’m almost loathed to type this, but I’ll wait for the inevitable accusation of being simple/misogynist/something else.

It isn’t anyone’s job to support someone who has abused them. But that analogy ends for me when we work on the basis that we don’t support all people who happen to share a biological sex with someone who has.

I don’t believe that it’s reasonable to refuse to support trans women because of male violence, unless they specifically are the ones doing it.

Do I want rapists in my space? Obviously not.

Does that mean I assume all males have the intention of harming me? Still no.

In extension, does that mean that all trans women, who were born male, have the intention of harming me? More no.

I can see, for example, that some TRAs have threatened violence. That doesn’t mean in my view that all trans people are categorised with them and shouldn’t have support.

Some women do things I don’t agree with. Doesn’t mean I think all women are anything.

If we’re not all a hive mind with the exact same behaviour, or likelihood of behaviour, neither is anyone else.

I am aware that my approach to it involves assuming the best in people and taking a gamble on being wrong, but I genuinely prefer that to the alternative.