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?

Wasabi I agree that we should never count womens' feelings as less valid than another set of womens' feelings... but the problem is that trans women are also women.

Are we not all on the same team? I mean come on trans women have endured pain and hardship and possibly painful surgery just so they can join us on our team! Would you consider them second class because they didn't have the privilege of being born on our team? They had to choose and fight for it. I think that deserves massive respect and a huge welcome party.

"For example, I do not want to see scholarships or jobs designated exclusively for women to be awarded to men. Particularly in fields where women are already under represented."

But transgendered women are women, so that job has gone to a woman therefore fulfilling your request.

Not hard is it?

You say the transwomen you have met all think one way.

No, I said the trans women I know feel like this. That's one of the things which enable us to be friends. I generally don't become good friends with people of any sort who don't respect women's boundaries.

And how does it negatively affect born women to also support transwomen?

Because when spaces, opportunities, energy that has been carved out for women - often at great personal cost and energy of the women that made that happen - are usurped by people who have previously spent their lives being treated by the world as men, with all the privilege that entails, it means that space, those opportunities, that energy is no longer available for women. See, for example, what is happening in women-only colleges. And I do not want to share a room in a DV shelter or a jail or anywhere else with a stranger who has a penis.

And it means that women are being told off for just talking about stuff which they experience, and which they only recently have found the space to discuss at all. See, for example, the women who are talking (incredibly bravely) in public about FGM, only to be told by trans women that they are "cissexist" for referring to it as female genital mutilation, because some women don't have clitorises or vulvas or whatever. I think if your immediate response to someone talking about FGM is to tell them off instead of offering them solidarity or sympathy, they you are a despicable human being. Likewise when women talk about their vaginas, and are told they are transphobic as some women don't have vaginas, so they shouldn't talk about them as female things.

Our team? Wtf?

I don't agree wasabi, at all, but you're entitled to your opinion. I don't believe most women would object to a transwoman using the same bathroom, for example. So I believe I am suggesting transwomen can use said bathroom against the minority of born women who want to stop them.

Think about it practically. You're in a toilet. A transwoman comes in, goes to use the stall, do you ask her to leave? Or do you want a sign on the door saying "no transwomen"?

Its nothing more than a thought exercise, really, is it?

Ethelb, I'm sorry that has been your experience. It's not one I've had. I can see how it could change your thinking.

Our team= women.
Sorry thought that was self expressed, should have been clearer.

Would you consider them second class because they didn't have the privilege of being born on our team?

We're the ones in Second Class. We weren't born with privilege at all. They were born in First Class, with privilege, and want us to treat them as if we were the ones oppressing them. We aren't.

"Think about it practically. You're in a toilet. A transwoman comes in, goes to use the stall, do you ask her to leave? Or do you want a sign on the door saying "no transwomen"?"

This has undoubtedly happened to us all, you prob haven't noticed because not all trans women are 6ft 2 with beards.
Consider that at any point, you have certainly shared a bathroom with a trans women? Did you notice? Did you mind? Probably not.

Being a woman isn't being part of a "team". That is utterly bizarre.

I wouldn't challenge a transwoman using the ladies toilet. I can understand that she may feel uncomfortable in the men's toilet.

In the women's changing room however I would be happy unless there were private stalls.

But I'm a prude my German friends tell me

Hubert, do you think transwomen should compete against born women in the 100m?

Countess there is a vocal minority of transwomen who want to prevent born women from even discussing things like menstruation, pregnancy, menopause etc because it is "transphobic" to discuss these "women's issues" when transwomen don't experience these things.

Essentially, as I see it, this vocal minority want to appropriate the meaning of the word "woman" and define for themselves what it means, based only around their own experiences and completely ignoring the experiences of women who do have biological female characteristics.

I will not be erased. I am a woman and that means something and I won't have a person who was born as a man and who grew up with male privilege tell me my experiences are meaningless.

I mean come on trans women have endured pain and hardship and possibly painful surgery just so they can join us on our team!
Being a woman is not a 'team' you can join.
There lies the root of the problem...removal of a body part does not make you a woman. After a mastectomy am I no longer female?

And when I wrote about scholarships/jobs/education reserved for women, I meant actual biological women. The odds are stacked against us enough without this shit.

In terms of work - transwomen were born with male privilege. Maybe they went to all boys schools and were pushed towards eg engineering. Got into exclusive uni courses with 95% male students. Then transition age 30 and compete for scholarships against women who had none of those options?

As for this:

"If you have grown up identifying 'correctly' with what our society has decided are the emotions, likes, and attributes of your sex, you are very lucky. If how you feel inside bears absolutely no resemblance to how you're told you should be feeling... well that's what it is!"

So all the women and girls all over the world (deemed female as when they were born someone said" it's a girl"), who don't harbour a feeling inside that they want to be a man, are therefore choosing the place that they are given in their society, and in fact are happily doing so.

Well that's good news. We don't need feminism. Women and girls (who haven't expressed a desire to be transformed into men) are obviously entirely happy with the situation and role for females in their society wherever that might be.

Great news

Think about it practically. You're in a toilet. A transwoman comes in, goes to use the stall, do you ask her to leave? Or do you want a sign on the door saying "no transwomen"?

Think about it practically. You are in a gym changing room full of women, disrobing or coming out of the shower or whatever. There is a person there with a penis on view. Do think, countess, that this is OK?

Archery
I'm not a fan of pitching men against women, but to carry on the analogy, they've made the decision that representing how they feel on the outside to match how they feel on the inside is more important to them than the status and privilege you get by being male. That can be seen as a huge sacrifice.

Anyone who will give that up to join us (especially if they want to fight for women's rights alongside us), well I think they deserve total acceptance.

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean when you say they want us to treat them like we're the ones oppressing them.

Prisons, Countess?
Internal examinations on rape victims?
Where do you draw your line?

I find it really hard to understand how anyone could think transwomen are privileged at all. A suicide rate of 25 times the general population suggests otherwise, as does the massive prejudice they face in every aspect of life. I also find it hard how anyone can justify adding to this prejudice personally.

Many points have been made about penises in female spaces, so I'll ask again how post-surgery transwomen are different, if they are?
If the penis is the issue, are they welcome when they are without them?

Hubert, nothing Wasabi said had anything to do with my reference to misandrists.

There are many interesting women on this forum but unfortunately we also have others who are anything but feminists and who, quite frankly, are a huge turn off to women like myself who do want to learn and understand things they maybe didn't get first time around so to speak.

I work at rape crisis - you have to be born a woman to work there and we only see women who were born female.

"For example, I do not want to see scholarships or jobs designated exclusively for women to be awarded to men. Particularly in fields where women are already under represented."

But transgendered women are women, so that job has gone to a woman therefore fulfilling your request."

Right so say you have a concern about women and girls into stem. Is that concern then to be alleviated if transwomen are prominent in those areas? Or not? In your opinion.

You first, countess. Something like 80% of trans women never have SRS. Is a penis on display in a women's changing room OK?

Hubert, it's not a matter of acceptance.

A very very vocal minority of the trans world wants to entirely redefine what women can say and do. They do not accept us.