Anti-Transgendered thread in Chat

[countessmarkyabitch]

Started off as a vague question about what makes you feel like a woman, lots of people started mentioning transwomen, naturally. Has now turned into some posters stating that transwomen are just men and shouldn't be allowed use female things like toilets and rape crisis, pretty much anything.

I find this really offensive and have stopped engaging. My personal feminism encompasses women who were born in male bodies, and supports their struggle to be recognised as women. I also think they need the protection and help of feminists as a particularly at risk group.

Is this an unusual stance? Does anyone agree with me?

Well said Buddhist.

That's very well said Buddhist.
I personally can't make the link between someone wanting their outside appearance to match what they feel on the inside, and us loosing our feminine identity.
We can live alongside each other, the same but different, no?

Hubert, does it makes sense to say this?

Feminists and transactivists both think sex and gender can be changed. Transactivists want to keep the categories and put themselves as individuals in a different box (transition). Terfs want to get rid of the categories for everybody (liberation). So their goals are in opposition. If terfs ever succeed in tearing down global patriarchy and the sex based hierarchy of oppression, there will be no gender (social rules we have imposed on people about how they act) difference between men and women and only sex difference will remain. That is, only immutable biological realities will remain. Thus, these biological realities is all that terfs can or will ever agree is what a woman truly is, as they are ideologically opposed to the imposition of gender roles or "the dress".

Transactivists argue that thoughts and feelings determine reality (a woman is a feeling). Terfs believe the exact opposite. In almost every point of foundational principle, transactivists and terfs are opposed. There really is no way they can both be right.

(I don't think all trans people are transactivists.)

Catatanca It makes a lot of sense, and a society free of gender and only sex is the dream for sure.

If a person feels that removing their genitals and taking hormones will make them feel better...well, I worry that they're going to extremes, but who am I to argue? I have no beef with what anyone wants to do with their own body but I do worry about the ethics of such extreme medical interference and the implications of it.

I don't object to men wanting to imitate a feminine stereotype.

What I do object to is those men saying they are women, especially the ones who simply wear a dress, heels and makeup and never take any hormones or have any surgery. In effect they are negating the lived experience of the entirety of 50% of the population. But then they go one step further and say they are more oppressed than born women and thus all of their wants and needs trump women at all times - they get decide everything about what it means to be a woman. Fuck that.

I am happy to live side by side with transwomen. I am not happy to be erased or controlled by them.

Does it make sense that I know a trans woman will never be a woman, but I will accept them as a woman and afford them the respect I would afford other women?
I'm not sure how to verbalise my distinction.

To be very honest, it often amazes me that gender reassignment surgery even exists.

There are situations where a person believes they will be better off, happier, without one of their limbs. For whatever reason they become convinced they have to get rid of that limb, that they'll be happier as an amputee. Doctors, in the vast majority of cases, absolutely refuse to operate. No matter how strongly the person feels, they will not interfere with that person's body because it would harm them. In some sad cases people have severely damaged their limbs or attempted to amputate them themselves.

It is accepted among the medical community that believing you will be better off without a limb is disordered thinking and a doctor must not act on it.

Yet when a person says "I'll be happier without my penis," doctors, after a lot of counselling etc will go ahead and lop it off. Why? How can that person know they will be happier? It's an irreversible procedure, why believe the person who wants to be without a penis but not the person who wants to be without their leg?

cailindana I'm a bit at that.

A trans persons sense of identity doesn't affect my own sense of identity.

I agree with you countess.

Hubert, if Jane, white as snow with blond hair and blue eyes, from a long line of Welsh farmers, said "I want to be called Latonya and recognised as a black Jamaican," then put corn rows in her hair and started talking in an Afro-Caribbean accent and wore a lot of very dark fake tan, what would you think? Would you nod and smile and do as she asked?

Why are you at that Amantes? Honestly, I'd like to understand so if you have a perspective on it, I'd be interested to hear it?

cailindana, in that instance I don't think Jane would be hurting anyone, so yes I would be supportive. What's the problem?
However I've already stated that gender and race are not really comparable.

A man can be overwhelmingly feminine.
Can a white person be overwhelmingly black?

That's the difference I see.

YY breakingbuddhist

I didn't say black Hubert I said Black Jamaican which indicates a specific culture, accent, way of living etc.

It is easy to tell if someone is a black Jamaican - there are certain characteristics.

You say a man can be "feminine." What does "feminine" mean? And does one have to "feminine" to be a woman?

Buddhist
I don't think that person with a penis is saying 'I am a woman'

They are saying "The gender roles that exist in our society and that are associated to my genitals are in direct conflict to how I feel, think, and behave. It would make me happier if society could see me as a woman, therefore I could live freely in a way that I can't now. In an ideal world I could exist just as I am and everyone would be respectful to me regardless, but that's just not the case so right now the best way for me to be comfortable is for the world to see me as female".

Or, to paraphrase, "I feel like/ I am a woman"

Feminine means different things to different people. The only definition that matters is the one perceived by our hypothetical person with penis.

As I said, it would be much better if everyone lived how they want without needing to change, but that doesn't stop me supporting those who want to change.
My ideals shouldn't stop someone else from being happy.

So a man can be "overwhelmingly feminine" and on the basis of that, get life-changing surgery but no one can actually say for sure what feminine means - it's entirely decided by the person in question?

I don't feel like I can define what it means to be feminine. Do you?