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.