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?

Oh, sorry, missed your post, Petulia!

no you expressed it much better

That's a very interesting blog post Catotanca - it tackles a lot of what we're grappling with here, from the point of view of a transwoman.

Amantes, do you think lesbians are being prejudiced if they don't want to sleep with male bodied trans women? What about straight men, are they trans phobic if they aren't attracted to male bodied trans women?

I think, as with gender identity, sexuality is very personal and any inclination or preference is appropriate. I really don't have an opinion on why or why not anyone would find anyone else sexually attractive.

So would I be right to assume you think it is appropriate for a transwoman with a penis to do internal examinations on rape victims?

It wouldn't have perturbed me. In fact, the woman who examined me, could well have been transgender. The other was male. I was more comfortable with the potentially transgender woman, due to my genuine acceptance that she was a woman.

Amantes: part of the problem is that the very idea of transgender relies upon and reinforces the gender binary.

I think that declaring certain spaces 'female only', reinforces the gender binary.

As far as I'm concerned as a feminist I want to get rid of gender as a concept altogether. these rigid gender roles cause women and men huge amounts of harm, in particular women. I don't want to define or defend my gender at all.

Exactly. Accepting gender as fluid helps to disminish the rigidity of those boundaries, to my mind. What could be more indicitave of success, than people feeling able to escape not just a gender role or stereotype but an actual gender, to be exactly who they feel they are?

heart, I appreciate that you don't wish to engage with me. My post wasn't a personal attack and I'm sorry you've chosen to take it that way.

Feminism is about destroying patriarchal structures which oppress women.

I feel prejudice against transwomen is opressive. Matriarchal oppression is as unwelcome to me as patriarchal.

"Matriarchal oppression"? Really?

Do you engage with feminism at all Amantes? Or do you believe in "equalism"?

"Accepting gender as fluid"

it's not about accepting gender as fluid - i'm saying that gender is a social construct in itself

If gender is "fluid" then "transitioning" from male to female and then expecting everyone to see you as female and getting the protections afforded to females (which are there because of their biological needs, not because they wear dresses) doesn't make sense.

Transgender people tend to see gender as binary not fluid.

You are either one or the other, if you want to be the other you have to transition.

You can say matriarchal oppression as much as you want, but it still won't exist will it?
And trans doesn't seek to escape gender or it would just be men in dresses and women in trousers

i also totally appreciate that within this construct of gender, which isn't likely to go away quickly, people have to try and live as best they can. which is why i'm totally sympathetic to trans* people trying to find a way to live within that that brings them closer to contentment. but those transactivists who are then pushing gender theories in a way that is harming women - that is too much

Those are my views. I understand they're unpopular but I've explained how I feel to the best of my ability. I don't mind if you disagree. I don't mind that your views differ. I could continue to respond to your challenging of my views but I will continue to reciprocate, so I have a feeling this discussion could go on for ever, which would be pointless. I don't wish to change your views and I'm sure you don't need to change mine.

Amantes - societies all over the world divide people into male and female, based on their genitals.

Throughout history, pretty much at all times, those with male genitals have been given the power, the money, the ability to do as they please, while those with female genitals have been made powerless and subject to abuse. Heck, if you had female genitals it wasn't even possible to vote in the UK until 1918. That's not even 100 years ago. Up until 1991, a man could legally rape his wife - that's not even 30 years ago.

So, being a woman has always been a disadvantage for those with female genitals, and feminism has grown up around removing these disadvantages - with great success. We can now vote, own property, have jobs etc. The fight isn't over but we're getting there. Women are still at a disadvantage throughout the world.

So being a woman means something. It means something because the powerful class, men, have made it mean something - they have made it mean that you are lesser, you are an object, you can't have freedom.

Women don't want that meaning. We would happily throw off that meaning tomorrow and just be people, alongside men. But the fact is, we are different than men simply because we have different biology and we are more vulnerable (the very fact that made us less powerful in the first place).

So, we, as women, want it recognised that yes, we are different, because we have vaginas and we have periods and babies. But otherwise we're the same as men - can wear the same clothes, have the same jobs etc etc.

Transpeople are saying no, actually, women are not different because of their biology and in fact it's transphobic to discuss biology as part of "women's issues" because transwomen don't have periods and babies etc.

They're saying I'm a woman because I wear a dress and do my nails and wear makeup.

They are redefining what a woman is, basing it entirely on gender roles.

It's all topsy turvy.

Women don't want those gender roles. We don't want be dress-wearing, nurturing nothings.

We want to be women, whose biology varies from men but who are in all other respects the same.

Who cares who wears dresses or does their hair or wears makeup? Who gives a shit? Why call them women?

A man in a dress is not a woman. I will not have my identity erased like that.
I have suffered because I have a vagina. That's what being a woman is. And a man won't suddenly decide "I've oppressed you for years, because you're a woman, because you have a vagina. And now you can't even call yourself a woman anymore, your very identity is mine, to play with whatever way I like."

FUCK THAT.

And you know what the real kicker is? What the real spit-in-your-eye moment is?

Men have created the need for women to have safe spaces, because they constantly attack them. Thousands of women are attacked every year and so women need places to feel safe from men.

Now, there's a bunch of men who are saying "actually you know what, those safe spaces hurt my feelings, so you can't have them any more. It's far more important that I put on a dress and makeup and go into a woman's changing room than it is for women to feel safe."

And the world is listening. Women are listening, and nodding and feeling compassionate.

WHAT THE FUCK!

I don't want to have to have safe spaces to get away from men after they rape me, because you know what I don't actually enjoy being raped, or revel in it in any way. I need safe spaces because men attack women.

If men would stop attacking women, well there'd be no problem would there.

No rape crisis centres, no need for separate changing rooms. We could all waft around with our fluid genders and live in peace.

But wake the fuck up. 85,000 women are raped every year by men. And that's a conservative number.

I will not have my reality as a woman erased to suit a man, no matter what clothes he wears.

I will not.

cailindana
That's exactly it. We just can't concede this, we can't

I am not a woman because I wear a dress and makeup.

Because I don't actually ever wear dresses or makeup.

I am a woman because I was born with a vagina and so that made my upbringing entirely different to that of the upbringing of someone born with a penis.

Having a vagina has shaped my life. It has held me back and it has given me great things (my babies).

I am a woman because I have a vagina and that made my life different.

A man, who grew up with a penis, and all that means, is not a woman because he puts on a dress.

Because if he is a woman, then woman is a meaningless term, and the fact that I was treated differently for having a vagina is meaningless.

My experience is not meaningless. I will not be made into nothing, by men, yet again.

It's so fucking offensive to say that you can put on being a woman like a (skirt) suit of clothes, it's obviously bullshit and it needs to be called as such. It's just not true is it?

Hear hear cailindana. It's quite striking that the radical feminist viewpoint as you express it is so clear and coherent and that the supporters of the transactivists who would like to erase the identity of being a biological woman with all the shit that entails are so very very confused about it all. And just tend to fall back on "well, those are just my views, I don't have to explain myself and they don't really have to make any sense or come under any scrutiny".

Of course it's not true.

I would love it if a baby was born, and the parents had a quick look at the genitals to see what might be coming up in the weeing/pooing/puberty department, went home, put their baby in whatever colour they wanted and got on with life. And that baby had a gender neutral name and only a few people who changed that baby's nappy knew what was going on in the genital department, because, you know, genitals aren't really relevant and who needs to know that shit anyway.

But that's not what happens is it? From the before the baby's even born it's "is it a boy or a girl," and from there on in the baby's genitals matter a whole lot.

It's the very basis of women's oppression - the fact that we are biologically different to men and are held back because of that.

We can't just ignore it, because if we ignore it then we're entirely stuck. How can we advance the rights of women if we're not even clear what a woman is?

Thing is, men were perfectly clear about what a woman was when it suited them.

Now, they've decided to change it. And we're supposed to roll over and take it. Yet again. No.

How can one defend a viewpoint that has no basis in reality venus?

I think you only need to look at the vitriol directed at parents who decide not to make public the biological sex of their baby/child to realise how much social pressure there is to treat children differently because of the genitals they have (specifically genitals as those children are too young for it to be about how they feel).

By making it so that people are scared to question anything about the whole subject for fear of rape and death threats and being called terf

There's no need to look an further than Tesco OddBoots - huge pink and blue signs saying "girls" and "boys." We are entirely segregated from day one according to our genitals.

What I want to know is, why are women still wiping the tears of the hangman who is putting the noose around their neck?

I am a TERF and extremely proud of it.

As men are erasing us and raping us and killing us and fucking up the world and excluding us from power, we are running after them with tissues telling them not to worry we'll support them.

What will it take?

I'm starting to understand (not condone) the threatening lashing out and name-calling having read this thread (and a few others).

When a debate highlights how illogical and unfair a a strongly held extremist point of view is then time and time again history has shown the holders of that illogical view react with violent rage to attempt to bring terror to their 'opponents' to prevent debate.

Maybe we need to come up with our own alternative to terf maybe WERT or something and start labelling the fuckers back. And do the death and rape threats ever get followed up by the police?