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?

Is there some sort of checklist of things to do in order to look like a woman??

I just am a woman. I always look like a woman because it is what I am. Butch lesbians look like women too.

This whole situation is a gaslighting head fuck. How do we come to a situation where there are 52 options to label your "gender identity" but there is no acceptable collective noun for those people born with a vagina? Half of the population are slotted into a crappy, second class box as soon as the vagina is spotted and sometimes aborted before birth based on the vagina being spotted. If we want to figure out how to dismantle the crappy, second class box and make a better box, how can we do this without naming and analysing the basis of how we are slotted in?

How is it that people slotted into the first class box and raised in the first class box (even if they have to sit at the back, they are still in first class) can say that they must be women because of a feeling that 99% of women say they do not feel?

It's not feminists who are performing invasive tests on trans poeple

It's the (historically male dominated) medical community.

Your last post on page 21 is very worrying to me, cigars

If there is a need for shelters for these people who call themselves women, then by all means build them.

But no, I do not wish to see them in shelters for women. I would stay away from such a shelter that welcomed men who perceive themselves as women. Is my vulnerability less deserving? Are my experiences to be discounted?

If a woman "presents" as a man, and has interests that are deemed masculine by society, what is she then?

Is this why some trans people get so fucked off with lesbians? Because they are attracted to women, and sometimes have short hair (masculine) and don't conform to feminine standards of dress. But they're still women. Does that not fit with the world-view.

There is a thing about "butch" lesbians being told they ought to be men isn't there? Or am I remembering that wrong. I'm sure I heard someone talking about it.

Transwomen are excluded from women's shelters for the same reason men are excluded from women's shelters to protect women from abuse by men.

And there have been studies which show that transwomen commit crimes at the same level, and same types of crime, as men and vice versa with transmen.

There is a whole lot of gaslighting going on in the narrative that transwomen pose no risk to women.

FloraFox the crime statistics just illustrate my point: these people are not women. I see no reason why the rest of us should pander to their delusions to the detriment of our own safety and well-being.

I've asked the question a few times: how does someone "appear feminine" or "look like a woman." There's still no answer to that one.

Walk into any shop right now and you will almost certainly be able to tell the difference between the men and the women. And there's your answer.

Gender may be a social construct, but it hasn't been deconstructed yet. We are operating within that construct and to deny that is absurd. Come back to me when you've deconstructed it and maybe you'll have a point then.

Pilchard, do not even get me started on the whole lesbian-trans divide. I have at times spent half my life justifying my relationship to radical lesbians who demand to know why I am with a person who isn't a cisgendered female, and the other half defending my sexuality to radical trans people who demand to know why I am (well, was) a butch-presenting lesbian who still identified as cisgendered. But I recognise that those are radical and extreme factions within the queer and trans communities. I don't make sweeping generalisations about them.

How does one fell the difference between men and women cigars? Their clothes? Is it all based on clothes?

Nor is theirs, cigars. My view counts too. My identity counts too. I entirely reject the label "cis". If I don't believe transwomen are the same as biological women that is my right. If they want to consider themselves women, that's their right too, but you can't force people to accept them as such. They are legally accepted as women. This does not mean that they actually are women. They are transwomen. I would happily campaign for them to be accepted as such and to be free from discrimination. But not for people with penises to be admitted to female safe spaces or for their issues to be prioritised over the vast majority of women's so that issues which concern them is all we are allowed to talk about in feminist spaces.

I'm copying venusinscorpio's post as she puts it so much better than I could. I agree with all of it. I'm new to all of this and find it deeply deeply worrying.

bell

Completely agree with you both

I don't believe that any person in possession of a penis is a woman

Cailin, for some, clothes would give some indication. For others, it wouldn't. I took my children to the supermarket today in entirely "men's" clothes. I doubt anyone thought I was their father. If you're going to be so obtuse that you are claiming not to know how to tell the difference between men and women, I don't know how to engage with you in intelligent discussion.

Bellimperia, rans women are not "people with penises" though. They are trans women. They are women. They were born into the wrong sex and pay for that perceived misdeed their whole lives.

And the majority of trans activists, let alone trans people, do not want what venus says that do. They want to be included in feminism, not appropriate it. Intersectionality, by its very definition, does not prioritise the needs of one group of women over another. How is that a bad thing?

the men and the women. And there's your answer.

Yes for the most part we can, even if the men are wearing dresses.

"Cailin, for some, clothes would give some indication. For others, it wouldn't. I took my children to the supermarket today in entirely "men's" clothes. I doubt anyone thought I was their father. If you're going to be so obtuse that you are claiming not to know how to tell the difference between men and women, I don't know how to engage with you in intelligent discussion."

I am not claiming not to be able to tell the difference between women and men cigars. I certainly can tell the difference, because they look different, regardless of the clothes they're wearing. I rarely wear "feminine" clothes but I definitely look like a woman and it's easy to see that I am a woman.

If a person who has none of the biological characteristics of a woman, how do they "present as a woman"?

If a person who was born with a penis is a woman, what does the word woman mean cigar?

Actually to reframe the question, if someone who has none of the biological characteristics of woman, who wasn't brought up female, can be a woman, what does the word "woman" actually mean? What would be the dictionary definition of "woman" such that it includes transgender people?

Bellimperia, rans women are not "people with penises" though. They are trans women. They are women.

I have no problem with accepting them as trans women but I do have a problem with the fact that because they can be legally defined as women without a change in their physical 'state', they can demand/ gain access to female safe spaces. Anyone with any knowledge or experience of male to female violence and abuse would understand why the presence of a physical male body in this environment would be unacceptable and deeply traumatic for the females needing the shelter.

cigars is this what you mean by "presents as a woman"?

twitter.com/LewdlyCordy/media

And the majority of trans activists, let alone trans people, do not want what venus says that do. They want to be included in feminism

But there appears to be a very vocal minority who tries to dictate the agenda and objects to events focused on women's issues. And who aggressively campaigns to 'no platform' people who disagree with them. And how can it be possible that events discussing menstruation or a performance of the vagina monologues are cancelled because they are trans exclusionary? Or are these just urban myths ?

Cailin, try reading this www.autostraddle.com/rebel-girls-waiter-theres-some-theory-in-my-gender-271633/. It's written by a trans activist on a political and social queer women's website.

I am trying to work out why I am so very angry about this, and why it's occupying so much of my headspace, and it guess it's because I feel duped, lied to and taken advantage of.

I have fought for trans rights, the very rights that are now being used to silence women and encroach on women only space, and I am angry about it. I feel like I have aided and abetted the enemy.

I understand the whole sex/gender thing. I am asking you, what is the definition of 'woman'?

And what I cannot get my head around is as follows

If gender is the social construct that doesn't really exist, but biological sex does exist, how can you "feel like a woman" but still be male bodied? If you're using the outward trappings of what society deems masculine and feminine, but keeping your biologically male body, aren't you actually reinforcing traditional notions of gender?

I have been following both threads with interest but it just looks like the same old stuff
men deciding what happens to women