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?

I must go, but I will be back!

Well how can a man be feminine, and therefore a candidate for surgery, if no one can say what feminine actually means??

oh ffs! the thread in chat isn't anti trans - its talking about whether women feel and innate sense of being a women ( vast majority of respondents don't) and why trans women on the other hand seem to. The only think it is anti is use of the term CIS which many born women, myself included, find offensive.

god this is getting so fucking tedious

But we are very lucky, we don't feel restrained by gender. We can be OK with being women who don't exhibit 'traditional feminine traits' like the ones stated above.
But some people aren't that lucky, and those restraints and stereotypes effect them in a really negative way.
Just because we're OK other people shouldn't pursue something that would improve their existence and make them happy? That just doesn't feel right.

I read threads like this, and then I think of think of the NHS working hard to ensure the privacy and dignity of patients by offering same-sex wards and wonder how the elderly and vulnerable patients would feel about sharing with people who quite clearly are physically not the same sex (even though they feel they are).
I'm sure the NHS would attempt to offer a private room rather than place someone on a ward which was incompatible with their own definition of their sex. But I'm not clear if this would be pandering to the bigotry of other patients, or respecting everyone's privacy and dignity.
It is all such a very tangled situation, and one that only a tiny minority of people are actually discussing or even aware of.

I've already said I don't feel comfortable discussing another person's race or culture. I can't define that any more than I can define what it is to be a man.
Lord I can't even define what it is to be a woman, but I feel OK that my vagina permits me to have a go.

MrsCakes you've made an interesting distinction, stating that old people would have a problem sharing a ward with a trans person.
I'm now wondering what the age ranges of the posters are.

...they get decide everything about what it means to be a woman. Fuck that.

I suppose, I see it as them deciding what it means to be a woman to them. Or even, what it means to be them, personally. This doesn't have a negative impact upon me, my life, my identity and I don't feel it impacts negatively upon the wider female community either.

Are trans people who transition in their young teens, so unwelcome and perilous to other females, cailindana?

Who doesn't feel restrained by gender?

Most women on the feminist boards feel restrained by gender.

Most women in general will have had times in their life when they have felt restrained by gender.

I'm not assuming that older people would have a problem sharing with a trans person, just that (for obvious reasons) other patients would not be informed that the patient in bed 3 is trans. All the patients would know is that the patient in bed 3 has a penis and is growing a beard (I saw more genitalia on display when I was an in-patient on a general ward (mostly elderly patients, some very confused, some dying) than I have before or since) and it is not always easy to maintain personal grooming while in hospital.
When patients or their families complain about the man in bed 3, the staff aren't going to say "but she feels like a woman".

Pilchard I should have said 'to a certain extent'.
We're able to exist the way we are without an overwhelming desire to change sex.
That's a lot less restrained than some, but of course it is all relative.

So, if one of your sons (or daughters) is transgender, will you tell them they can't really be?

In theory, I think it would be wrong to request a different examiner if she was trans.
In practise, I'd put the victim's feelings first.
I'd like to think that a trans woman wouldn't take that personally and be understanding.
Hello ideal world.

This is an issue that interests and bothers me a lot. As a biological woman, a big part of my experience as such has been painful illnesses and resulting treatments that someone born male could not experience. That made me question a lot of what I'd read during my studies, Butler especially.

But then my gut still says that if someone wishes to be responded to as a woman, who am I to stop them? Or to refuse to share space with them? When I hear people say that the presence of a person with a penis in a woman's changing room or prison is threatening it always makes me think, 'but women can rape other women.' Statistically I know men are far, far more often responsible in this respect but the biological fact of being female doesn't necessarily make someone a sympathetic fellow traveller or not a threat. It's a very difficult question.

"I think it would be wrong to request a different examiner if she was trans."

That's a disgusting thing to say. I don't believe it is a feminist position.

Hubert the only reaction to being uncomfortable in the gender role associated with one's sex is not to want to change sex.

Many people react with depression, self harm, eating disorders and the like. Or go through life feeling generally angry. There are lots of responses to discomfort with gender roles, and they are exhibited by both men and women. It's not as simple as "cis or trans". A lot of "cis" people do not accept the gender role as it is applied to their sex, but they are not trans either, they do not desire to be the other sex (or indeed some other classification or identity). They just say why can't I be me, without all this shit?

MrsCake, when I went to hospitsl I was shoved in the men's ward.

The changed the sign to "mixed"

7 blokes and me.

I think private rooms, women's wards or any sensitivity is a luxury.

It was a stretcher in the coridor or men's ward. With my arse hanging out my lovely hospital gown and everything

Just wanted to wake people up from their dream world regarding this!

Again, I think it would be wrong, for me. It would go against my ethics.
If it is not the wrong thing for you, then that is equally as valid.
Telling me my personal ethics that I would employ were I in that situation aren't right, well that's just wrong.

I have been in that situation but wasn't examined by a trans person. As far as I'm aware.

I support the victim in their choice, every single time.