What makes a Woman a Woman? (Or a Man a Man)

[Hullygully]

Spin off from TAATAAT.

Beyond the focus of mtf trans and "born-women" only spaces.

Yes, I am happy with case by case. I don't like sweeping generalisations

I just think it's a massively problematic area.

As I said, I only know one transgendered person. And she is lovely. Really lovely.

Why should she be made to feel unwelcome, be subjected to a hostile environment, and have her views and experiences belittled?

the personal is political...

There was a feature about it recently in one of the more sensible papers and I found I agreed with those particular cases, Moo

Actually, my bad, they do not produce sterility as puberty restarts when the blockers are stopped.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8454002/Puberty-blocker-for-children-considering-sex-change.html

You know there was a time when psychiatrists insisted that homosexuality was a brain disorder, thank goodness this is now seen as not being the case. However there are many charlatans who believe that they can cure gays/lesbians.

And all because society loves the gender binary.

yy Oil

I guess we work to change the binary nonsense whilst allowing people to self-define until it has changed as they have had the misfortune to be born pre society binary change.

But those who want to 'self-define' are the very ones who CAN change the gender binary. They can lead the way in demolishing it.

Ah, but no one ever wants to be the sacrificial figurehead do they?

You could do it as a group, not as individuals. All it takes is one brave, brave person.

It will change, slowly. It's all very new, at least it's beginning to be out there and talked about.

I suggest :

If someone is born with a penis, and if they are happy with their socially-constructed gender role in their society, then he is a boy/man.

Due to the male domination of society, that particular biological sex/anatomy/social gender role combination is given the privileged position of "normal" against which everyone else's mind and body is judged and categorised.

Patriarchy encourages everyone else to fight over other categories, in the hope of not being left at the bottom of the damaging hierarchy created by Patriarchy.

Whether there is one or more other category is probably of no concern to most of the most privileged group, men who like being men, because they are not adversely affected by the existence of other sexes and/or genders.

tbh I think we all know what a woman and man is. When girls and boys are born as babies, we know from appearance and genitals whhether they are a girl or boy. Yes someone can be intersex as well where the gender isn't clear, but this doesn't detract from the fact that we do know.

In terms of why should it matter? In an ideal world it shouldn't. Just as it shouldn't matter whether someone is black or white. In reality sexism and racism mean that these things do matter. We are treated differently because we are woman by society and institutions as well as individuals.

I think self definition reinforces gender expectations. After all if someone can be a woman but have a male body, because they feel like a woman - then it begs the question, what does a woman feel like?

What it ends up boiling down to are stereotypes of the differences between how men and women feel and behave.

I think two problems with the everyday practicality of including chromosomes in the definition of any combination of girl/woman/female/boy/man/male are:

1. many people do not know their own chromosome combination
2. many people do not know the chromosomal combination of other people

What about the social and ethical issues of introducing a compulsory universal system of chromosome testing at birth for every baby born in the world as well as dealing with the backlog of every child and many adults already alive?

Humans have several primary sexual characteristics (the reproductive system), most of which are internal. Only a few are visible, such as vulva and testicles, and these are usually not displayed publicly. There are also numerous secondary sexual characteristics, not involved in reproduction e.g. breasts and Adam's apple.

All sorts of complications in recognising someone's "sex" have arisen since the invention of plastic surgery, which can create imitations of most, if not all, of these external body parts.

oilfilled - if you go to Wotever World you'll meet a large number of brave people who are challenging the gender binary. (It's a pretty good night out as well).

But unless someone is intersex, we do recognise whether a baby si a girl or a boy. We just do. We don't need to get into which combination of chromosomes mean that someone should be recognised as a girl or boy at birth. If you have a child, how did you decide they were a girl or a boy as a baby?

I want to know what a woman is.

Because if there is no definition then that's a bit of an issue.

Do you have children? Are they boys or girls? How do you know?

tbh I think it is a straw argument. It is like me calling something a chair and you saying how do you know it is a chair?
A - Because you sit on it.
Q - But you can sit on an elephant, si that also a chair?

etc etc.

Huge - wotever looks fab.

Huge - why do you think Transgender peopel challenge the gender binary? I think they reinforce it, so I would genuinely like to know.

I think my children are girls but then who can say

Elephants - I was referring specifically to Bar Wotever and its denizens, not transpeople in general. There's a lot of variation. Some transpeople just want to 'pass', and vanish into the gender norm. I don't see many ways that this challenges the gender binary. However others (who might describe themselves as genderqueer rather than trans) choose to celebrate their 'queerness' rather than disappearing.

I cited Wotever World, and Bar Wotever in particular, because it's a cabaret and social night where a lot of genderqueer people get together who do challenge the idea of normative gender. The founding rationale for the event was the 'wotever' idea - ie who gives a shit whether you're a man, a woman or something else altogether. Oilfilledlamp was talking about how transpeople as a group might challenge rather than reinforce gender norms, so I wanted to suggest that perhaps in some cases that's exactly what is happening.

But my point is that you know why you think they are girls? We don't need to get into talking about chromosomes for example for you to know that.

But surely having operations, electrolysis, etc to alter your body suggests you do care whether you are a man or woman? After all, why have it in the first place if these categories do not matter?

If you were talking about people who did not alter their body and simply said, don't define me, then that would be a challenge of a type.