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I am still Spartacus

186 replies

OscarDeLaYenta · 01/09/2016 19:14

Seems timely. Sadly still required.

I am Oscar, and I remain Spartacus. Really cannot be arsed to C&P or restate my position.... I shouldn't need to have to state the need for language to reflect reality in the first place.....

(Belated shout-out to seek for brilliantly using the Spartacus analogy in the first place!)

OP posts:
StatisticallyChallenged · 03/09/2016 15:22

And claiming to be infertile women who are having the same experience as actual women who are infertile.

As a woman, you pretty much grow up expecting to be able to have children (unless you've been told otherwise for some medical reason.) It's just a reality which we take for granted when we're young - I'm a woman, I can have babies. We spend a large chunk of our youth/adult life trying to ensure we don't get pregnant. Then, for some women, they try and suddenly discover that something they'd assumed would be easy isn't, and that their body doesn't work the way they expected it to.

This is not the same experience as a transfeminine who, unless they are actually delusional, has never expected to experience pregnancy and so is not experiencing that same sense of loss. That they lose the ability to reproduce (as men, rather than women) is down to a choice they have made. It's just not the same and to try and co-opt the narrative and support that exists for infertile women is selfish bollocks IMO.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 03/09/2016 16:11

In terms of the bathroom debate which is often deemed to be a theoretical, not real issue:

www.thenational.scot/news/city-centre-bar-sparks-anger-over-petulant-apology-to-an-alleged-transphobic-incident.21933

ErrolTheDragon · 03/09/2016 18:55

Wonder if that manager would have stopped a transwoman from entering the womens loos. Im sure they wont dare to now.

Lightbulbon · 03/09/2016 19:12

Still Spartacus

WeDoNotSow · 03/09/2016 20:35

Earlier this year I read a trans thread and wondered what the big deal was.
Why couldn't people just be accepting, live and let live etc.
Why did it matter really where people wee'd?

Then I read a bit more.

And the more I read, the more I become Sparticus...

Sex is a scientific fact.
Gender is not.

Acknowledging gender and not sex is not only factually incorrect, but damaging to women.

SparticusDoesNotSow

akkakk · 03/09/2016 21:19

Fantastic to see this...
I am male, I hope that it is okay to post on here, but I completely agree, biology is biology you are physically what you are born, chromosome / bits etc.
I have no issue with anyone living as they wish, pink, blue or any other colour clothes it matters not, but they have no right to re-define everyone else in some misguided belief that they are something they can never be...
I feel terribly sad for those who have difficulty in coming to terms with how they were born, but as a Christian I believe that God made us male or female not something random with a choice as to what we should be...

And can I just point out that virtually all the strong characters in the Bible / those who sorted out the issues, got it right, did what was important... were women! Most of the men made a mess of it!

I am proud to stand alongside others and declare I am Spartacus

IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat · 03/09/2016 21:29

Hello
Bible stuff is not going to help
But thanks

akkakk · 03/09/2016 21:40

Hi, IBelieve, possibly not the right place for discussion :)
The Bible though is the origin of defining men as men and women as women, so could be seen to originate this whole debate...
I was also trying to be sensitive as a man on a thread predominantly female, and trying to show hat I am not some stereotypical male chauvinist, sorry if you were upset...

GrouchoSparks · 03/09/2016 21:43

I'm GrouchoSparks. I'm delurking. I'm not cis. And MNHQ - you disappoint me with your weak and worthless response to genuine concerns. I'm also a parent who lurks and you've given no thought whatsoever to me. I will leave this (otherwise brilliantly supportive) site over this, along with many others.

IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat · 03/09/2016 21:55

akkakk
I am sure, in about half an hour (30 mins for you yanks) we will be well advised of the place to discuss this and the Lord

But respectfully, I decline

makeslogicalsensetome2 · 03/09/2016 22:26

Just repeating what I wrote elsewhere .
My ex had lots of self loathing which is why they felt so much better when they were femme. They didn't have their male personality making them feel bad and their female side had no history to came back and bite them.
So she felt terrific and put it down to finally being 'her' authentic self. No psychiatrists talked about the motivation, they just went with it.

Taking hormones does change brain chemistry and amplify dysphoria so its hard to not want to continue transition while taking them.

If people only see male and female they think they only have those to choose from. If you don't want to be male their only option as they see it is female. As someone commented on the link below - 'I didn't know I didn't have to be trans to be dysphoric'.
We are trained to think of family in terms of only 2 sexes so of course I can see people's reasoning although I think there should be an alternative to synthetic hormones /surgery.

This survey is said to be the largest so far, which speaks to the lack of research on the subject.

Female detransition and re identification: Survey results and interpretation.
direct link-
guideonragingstars.tumblr.com/post/149877706175/female-detransition-and-reidentification-survey

MissiAmphetamine · 03/09/2016 22:55

I am Missi Spartacus, and I have registered and delurked after years of reading quietly, because I think this issue is pivotal to the issue of women's rights in the future.

Today America's Planned Parenthood tweeted that "Menstruators in New York started to #TweetTheReceipt celebrating the repealed tampon tax—but some are still charged." mobile.twitter.com/PPact/status/771850195478908928

Female humans - women, and girls entering womenhood - are being reduced to our bodily functions by an organisation whose core focus is supposed to be women, because of the trans movement's agenda. Up next: women being reduced to birthers, breeders, feeders, and pissers.

The trans movement, with its harmful cult-like overtones - believe, do not ever question, ignore science and evidence, blindly follow lest you be ostracised is silencing and erasing women.

The trans movement, with its insistence that gender is innate, and its reification of gender - a social construct that varies widely over time and space, and is linked to the sexes only in that it cements women as beneath men in the societal hierachy - is intrinsically incompatible with feminism and women's lib.

The loudest voice of the trans movement consists largely mostly of angry white heterosexual males, who claim to be oppressed. They demand that females open up our spaces and our bodies to them, with all the entitlement of a person socialised male. They insist a penis is female, and then demand surgery to create a mimicry of a vagina despite this. They insist that all they want is to pee, but then reject the compromise of more unisex toilet and changing room facilities. They say their gender identity is unquestionable and sacrosanct, and then insist lesbians and bisexual women "examine their biases" for not wishing to have sex with a self-hating male with breasts and a penis/inverted genitals. And then they claim oppression, and that females are privileged because we are "allowed" (read: society expects us) to be "feminine."

I have no issues with males and females who wish to not conform to gender - I think that's fantastic.

As someone who has struggled ever since puberty with body hatred, I have every sympathy for people with sex dysphoria, and feel adults should have access to bodily modifications after undergoing thorough psychological assessment to explore every other option.

But a male is male - an XY human who is of the sex that if healthy will produce sperm. A female is a female - an XX human who is of the sex that if healthy will have ova. An intersex person is an intersex person - a human, generally sterile, with a chromosomal abnormality or disorder of sexual development.

Humans cannot change sex.

So regardless of whether one's penis is surgically modified or not, males should not be using female-only facilities and services.

I am Spartacus, and I will not stand by while women are silenced and erased, and turned into "a feeling a man has," in the name of "inclusion." This is a pivotal issue in regards to the future (or lack thereof) of women's rights, and MNHQ should think very carefully about whether they wish to discard their core demographic - female women - or whether they will show integrity and take a stand for the females whose womanhood is being actively reduced to a feeling that males have.

Sorry for the screed; it seems in my years of reading I'd saved up a lot to say!

GarlicMist · 03/09/2016 23:15

Applause, Missi!

MissiAmphetamine · 03/09/2016 23:20

Blush Thanks, Garlic!

peachescreatures · 04/09/2016 10:37

I'm so infertile woman and have had a transwoman who'd fathered children tell me my pain at not being a mother was less than theirs. Fuck that noise.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 04/09/2016 10:40

Great post, Missi! I particularly identify with what you say about lesbians.

The appalling way lesbians are being bullied and oppressed by TAs was one of my main peak trans moments. It really does make my blood run cold. Lesbians are a small group and to hear how their bars, groups, even music festivals, are basically becoming uninhabitable due to trans invasion is distressing. What's been done to lesbian activist, Magdalen Bern, is totally outrageous. It would have been considered impossible 10 years ago. Trans activism is moving and changing barriers about what's ok very, very fast and we need to fight these changes with a great deal of energy.

I'm straight as they come (experimented back in the day but not a flicker of interest Grin) but I went on my first gay rights march when I was 14. It's a cause dear to my heart. The plight of lesbians under the wheels of the trans juggernaut makes me very angry. Sad

JadziaSnax · 04/09/2016 10:54

Still Jadzia, still Spartacus.

I'm not cis.
I'm a woman.

IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat · 04/09/2016 11:29

Great post Missi Please post more

Iggi999 · 04/09/2016 11:34

Peaches that's incredible, and so insulting to the children he had.

PacificOcean · 04/09/2016 11:35

Just attempted the SAGE test and it tells me I am androgynous. Which mainly seemed to be because I'm good at maths and not particularly good at reading people's emotions.

This makes me so angry! I'm a WOMAN!

MissiAmphetamine · 04/09/2016 13:22

Prawn Magdalen Bern is fantastic! I love her YouTube videos - so blunt and to the point. She's brilliant!
And the 'cotton ceiling' infuriates me immensely too. I'm bisexual but monogamously married to a man, so while it could, it's unlikely to ever affect me personally. Despite that, the fact that males are calling lesbians and single bi women bigoted for not wanting to have sex with them is one of the things that contributed to my 'Peak Trans' moment too.
It's the height of misogyny and male entitlement - quintessially male.
Very few women would demand that an entire demographic of men be willing to have sex with them. In fact, while a very small minority of FTTs are trying to cast gay men as bigots for not wanting to have sex with them, their voices are far fewer, and far less effective.
I wonder why that is Hmm
I also think it is male entitlement issues that create this idea of sexual partners being a 'right' in the first place. It is not a view that women generally have, not having been socialised to consider our wants as automatically more important than another human being's.
This also ties in with how many actual genetic, natal, actual female people say there is no such thing as "feeling like a woman" (save experiencing female biology,) and transgender (genetic) males completely ignore women's reality because it doesn't fit in with their narrative and what they want. Just like men.
And thanks, IBelieve Blush
Interestingly: When I did the ridiculously sexist and MTT autogynephilia-esque SAGE test and ticked female as my sex, I got female to male transsexual. When I ticked male as my sex without changing my answers I got male to female transsexual Hmm

StatisticallyChallenged · 04/09/2016 13:46

That's my outcome too pacific, for the same reasons. In reality I'm actually very feminine style wise, but I'm also autistic / have aspergers

GarlicMist · 04/09/2016 14:51

I don't think there are any 'reasons' for outcomes of that test. The whole thing was devised with only one subject in mind: a stereotypically "feminine" autogynephile who is biologically male. As the briefest nod to balance, it included tests for stereotypical "masculinity".

It simply didn't test for a middle-of-the-road woman who loves power tools and doesn't get horny at the thought of women's underwear, so it dumped me in the androgyny bucket - while still recommending transition!

If this test is actually used as a diagnostic tool, the practitioners using it should be severely rebuked by their professional bodies.

GarlicMist · 04/09/2016 14:53
  • A middle-of-the-road man would get 'androgynous' too.
Prawnofthepatriarchy · 04/09/2016 17:06

I am still Spartacus, and want to repost - for emphasis - what Dorade wrote so well about "transing" children and young adults:

I think MNHQ has an unparalleled opportunity to facilitate and even champion a desperately-needed public debate and discussion about this issue, which is leading to healthy children being set on a path to sterilisation and bodily mutilation.

There is no such popular debate at the moment. The current discourse on TV and in the popular press is about "brave" kids or middle aged men "changing gender". Someone needs to propel the other side of the argument into the mainstream before Maria Miller gets her way with legislation which will remove women safe spaces and more.

I bought Magdalen Bern a drink in the pub after July's feminist conference in London, Missi. Told her I was a massive fan, which made her laugh. She laughs a lot. Just as funny and articulate as you'd expect.

Even got a photo of us together. Blush I must print it off and keep it somewhere safe: if she keeps up what she's doing for women - for lesbians particularly - it might be as epic as having one taken with Germaine Greer. I can see myself bringing it out to show the grandchildren... Grin

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