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.

And would any of these "cis lesbians" consider dating a trans woman?

There's plenty of common ground in this world 🌎 single sex spaces are a very small part of the world.
But they are a very important part to give females (and males) the safe spaces and dignity they deserve.

I don't have the time to pull out the study to show you that's not correct.

But let's just pretend it IS true, for the sake of this argument.

What you're not understanding is that just ONE trans person who is a sexual predator is one too many.

Women's single spaces exist as protection for us. We are not a shield. One woman assaulted is not acceptable. That one woman should have been safe in a single sex space but they weren't. And yet, the numbers are much, much higher than just one woman who has been assaulted.

Bear in mind here we're only talking about convicted sexual predators. There are many, many more incidences of intimidation and sexual aggression/harassment that go on where no charges are ever brought.

This list I'm attaching is international. So, not just the UK. Nevertheless, all of the trans individuals on this list have assaulted women in spaces that were supposed to be safe. Just LOOK at how many women have been sexually attacked when it was preventable by keeping our spaces single sex.

Women have been let down by the authorities that were supposed to protect us.

As I say, I'm trying to be compassionate about how difficult it must be for you, but there are really good reasons why you're seeing such a pushback here. It doesn't feel as if you're listening to women but just re-asserting your views about "lady feelings" as if that's going to make us stop worrying about the very many male-bodied sexual predators that exist.

To be honest, its more that I felt this conversation could have gone somewhere but its as usual it become about just attacking me and calling me male and TIM and I mean really its just proved my point overwhemingly.

OP,
Thank you for being brave and open to discussion. I found your post gracious but confusing. If there is a female brain type then surely one of its characteristics is that it is predisposed to non-violent, conciliatory behaviour due to biological role of child-rearing.

Why is it then that in the TERF wars, so many transwomen display textbook male brain pattern violence, using physical force and threat, calling for rape and murder of TERFS for having the audacity to disagree with them? Where's their female, gentle conciliatory brain? TERFS don't make death threats or use physical intimidation against transwomen. They are fierce in their beliefs and outspoken but I have not heard of a single transwomen who has been subjected by women to the barrage of death threats, family mutilation, rape etc that JKR has received from transwomen. Explain to me how this can be, if all those violent transwomen have female brains. Why are women not threatening death but men who think they are women resort immediately to male-pattern aggression?

If transwomen are women, why are the militants so misogynistic? Many seem to hate women. They display male entitlement, such as claiming lesbians should accept their ladypenises. Like the cyclist towering on his podium having won the gold medal in the women's race, with his vast muscular male build and his very male bulge in his cycling shorts. To me this is evidence of male brain: entitlement, bullying, indifference.

How is a transwoman's brain 'female'? What does that mean, practically?

“it just doesnt meet up to scientific psychological understanding that goes back quite a long time with many studies on this subject”
In which case fight be for more research to be done on your type of brain development but do not fight to be called a woman. The Supreme Court was very clear: there are two biological sexes and yours is male.

You’re asking us to find solutions to your problems, bluntly, but also asking us not to name the actual issue, which is that transwomen are men.

And therein lies the problem. If you can’t see or accept that men, regardless of gender identity, violate single sex spaces then what possible pathway to reconciliation is there other than once again asking women to budge up and cede their nearly-lost rights to men?

If we cannot name you as a man, then we have already lost the ability to protect ourselves and that is too big an ask, regardless of whether you see it as uncivil or impolite.

'But let's just pretend it IS true, for the sake of this argument.'
Okay. Well. It is lol. so.

'What you're not understanding is that just ONE trans person who is a sexual predator is one too many.'
I mean this would just apply to every group then wouldnlt it.
I think that statement really just shows predjucial intent. Expecting a group of people to all be entirely perfect and hold them and judge them on the standard of just one is really just the definition of predjudice.

I wish you all the best and I’m glad that your transition is working well for you.

It is completely unreasonable of you to expect us to pretend that you aren't male though.

Because if we cannot be clear about the fact that you are male, and that the reason we do not want to include you in our category of female people or in spaces for female people is because you are male, it makes us look like bigots who are excluding you for some unjustifiable reason, for example, because you're a black woman, or a foreign woman, or a disabled woman, or a poor woman.

The only legitimate justification we have for not including you in female only spaces is because you are male. So we have to be able to point that out.

Why do you think you should have the right to stop us from discussing reality?

If you’ve got a problem with people grouping post-operative trans people together with all the other umbrella trans people, go take it up with Stonewall.

We exclude all males from female only spaces for this reason. It's not prejudiced. Statistically, male people commit almost 100% of sexual offences. So we can protect women and girls to a certain extent by creating female only spaces, which drastically reduces the risk of us being the victim of a sexual offence in those spaces.

My husband isn't whingeing about this and saying he's being tarred with the same brush as sexual predators because he's not allowed in women's changing rooms. So why are you?

Because I mean it's not true. "lol". Not sure why sexual predators is funny to you, but OK.

It does apply to every group that we're at risk from. And that's men. In all their forms, and regardless of how they identify.

Men are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than us. Even when they take hormones.

There's not an ounce of understanding or compassion for women coming from you. Nothing.

You want us to solve your problems, indulge you in your fantasy claims of lady brains but you won't budge an inch in considering our safety or our needs.

Attitudes like this is why we have dug our heels in and said enough.

If our safety hadn't been so wantonly disregarded, many of us would have been willing to make more concessions.

To use your words, I don't expect a group of people to be "all perfect". I'd just like them to be a bit less rapey. And if they can't manage that, then they can find their own spaces.

It’s not expecting them to be perfect. It’s acknowledging that women have protections from men for a reason, and that gender identity does not change the risk faced by women.

You presumably see value in women’s spaces so are happy to be “prejudiced” against men.

Just because you consider yourself a woman though doesn’t mean we have to, nor do we have to give up our single sex spaces to include men because of how they see themselves.

All you ask is that we tell you how many fingers you are holding up.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

The problem is that the pretence (or in your case, genuine misconception) that there are gendered brains, is exactly what the oppression of women has always been based on.

From.everything I've read (I spent years trawling the internet for research on this), there has never been any reliable evidence for this claim. Quite the contrary.

The claim that males and females have gendered brains is exactly the oppressive ideology we have to fight.

You've come here to a group of women who are predominantly gender critical and claimed to be female, not male, not a man, and asked us to lie to you and pretend you're right. Can you not see how absurd and entitled that is?

Do you think people disagreeing that you are female/a woman are calling you names?

Apparently we're supposed to discuss a very specific group of people but not actually use any kind of name that might identify who that group of people are.

You couldn't make this shit up.

The thing is, we tried your way for years. Being kind and turning a blind eye to the “harmless transsexual”. Brave Julie Bindel warned us as to where it would end up and we did not listen. When, as she warned, we ended up with rapists in women’s prisons and violent men in female hospital wards and rape crisis centres and women like me were called things like “Nazi scum” for protesting were you there sticking up for us? Were you there sticking up for women when Julie and Maria were physically assaulted by men for speaking out? Were you there when Fair Play for Women were barricaded into a room and hounded by loud, angry males? Or did you sit back smugly relying on the lie Stonewall told you? That you were a woman and there was nothing we could do? So now it turns out we were right and Stonewall were wrong you want our help? To agree the sexist nonsense that some males have ladybrains, to be kind because you have made your body into a facsimile of ours and just accept that you are exceptional? No. It is a no now. You need to get your Stonewall buddies to help you with this mess. We are out of kind, it got screamed, abused, mocked, derided and egged out of us.

What really upsets me is that insisting I have a certain type of brain, different from a "male" brain, is entirely smashing to pieces my entire experience of my self, my sense of self, my identity. You would think a trans person would understand and empathise how distressing and traumatic this can be for women, to be told that their entire knowledge and sense of their core self is false. How traumatising it is to tell us that not only are our sense of selves wrong, i.e. we are wromg to the very core of our beings, but that we have to accept that the basis of centuries of horrifying oppression, which continues to this day across the world, is a fact grounded in science.

Can you not see how terrifying that is? How, if your claims to have such horrifying and dangerous new scientific discoveries are true, it's absolutely vital and urgent that we immediately bring in extra protections in law to preserve all the basic rights women have struggled to gain?

Because you're making a claim so dangerous and frightening in its consequences, if we were to believe it (where is this evidence of our "different" othered brains, our mysteriously somehow Other minds?) then we actually need legislatevextra protections fast.

I , a human biological female will not validate your feelings, you are a male and will live and die a male.
You need to put your feelings and energies into solving were you fit in society, its not for us women to solve it for you.

Okay actually thank you for actually giving a decent reply!

' If there is a female brain type then surely one of its characteristics is that it is predisposed to non-violent, conciliatory behaviour due to biological role of child-rearing.' I suppose on average...maybe? I mean it is first of all worth mentioning although there is sex differences in the brain there is also large and vast individual differences espesically through time and life.

I think your question here really points to the fact that we are still learning. When I said 'female brain' I meant this anatomically speaking and things like responses and so on. Speaking about larger topics and more complicated behaviour the answer could be, I dont know? I mean I know people have called me a man here but I did just say I didnt know. Bad joke. Anyway

Also I think that transgender probably have fairly unique brains and ive seen studies where thats unrelated to sex differences but other parts of the brain. We dont really know what that could mean other than that the brain could actually be gender diverse beyond a binary. It could also be a reason why autism is prevelant in Transgender people. Though I am very neurotypical so maybe thats why im here now? Maybe.

I think also, knowing what I know about transgender people, we arent really a monolith. I am very binary conforming. I believe deeply in medical transition. I, quite frankly, despite what some rather unpleasant people seemed to have said here, am very female. I have often been called the most cis trans woman that they know.

On the other hand, others are...less like that? I must admit I dont have too much communication with other transgender people. Im just a girl living her life basically. Im a girl who happens to be trans and not a transgender person who happens to be a girl. But yes, some transgender women are much less passing and can be more difficult to communicate with.

I also think that while you cite incidents of bad behaviour it is worth nothing that hate crimes against trangender people rose by 186 percent last year. So most of them are scared. Hell im scared and Im one of the most safe. This is why I felt I had to do this today and why im going to try things like this more often. I just dont feel this situation is sustainable you know?

But to answer your final question, speaking from myself, what makes me what I am is the peace estrogen brought me that testosterone never could. I couldnlt process my mind before and I cant really explain it that well other than it was like the wrong fuel? Id do honestly anything to be able to be like you and have the right anatomy to have my own children. Its what ive always wanted and I feel like I let my boyfriend down all the time because I cant give him that. And I guess thats why it hurts when someone doesnt see me. I cant fundementally prove on every level why my brain is why it is no one can. All I know is if I ever try to be anything different than I am then my whole world falls apart.

I hope this helps. Ive said alot of things, Im sorry.

Thank you for being brave and posting this and I think you’re trying to be open rather than goady. I know it wasn’t easy and you’re prepared for being flamed.

You mentioned about having a ‘feminine’ brain. I’m not actually sure what this is. Caring? Nurturing? However, women for years have fought to do ‘male’ jobs are that equality is now being seen in all areas of. Female firefighters, plumbers, astronauts etc. (and male nurses, etc). The biggest growth sport at the moment - football, traditionally a men’s sport.

You also mention about the risk that transgender people have in going into make toilets etc. To me, that’s one of the main issues. I have no issue in the ‘genuine’ transgender person living their life as they like. However, this self -identify malarkey which occurs has spoilt it for the rest. So your six foot, bearded , tattooed rugby player (apologies for stereotype) can decide ‘he’s a woman’ and therefore have access to female toilets, hospital wards, woman’s refuges, etc. even though the day before he was playing in the men’s rugby match final. The SC ruling has given protection against this happening.

You ask women to ‘get our heads together’ to get a decent solution. Women want this as well! Half the problem is that’s the trans community has ‘solved the problem’ without discussing it with women first. Campaign to get your own spaces.

Also, you need to discuss it with men as well. You fear violence from men. Therefore, instead of telling women to lump it, educate the men. Take action to reduce male violence.