I can't get my head around the phrase "Transwomen are women".

[nikkinack]

Sorry for another thread on the topic, but I was looking at my local candidates and the only female candidate is for the Green party, and she has retweeted that phrase (with the addition "Transmen are men) a couple of times today.

It seems like doublethink to me, every time I try to unpick the statement I get all messed up in the process.

So, if transwomen are women, why call them transwomen? Surely just by defining them as transwomen you are saying they are different to women? Transwomen can't insist on women using the label cis and then lay claim to the standalone word 'woman'.

So transwomen are women, ciswomen are women. The word woman applies to people of either category, but they are still separate categories within the single word, which we can't describe. We are not the same, but to state 'Transwomen are women' is to insist that we are.

I don't know how anyone who makes this statement can square all of this. It hurts my head just trying to work out what they mean.

3 of us! You're not getting away with that one Mary.

Ok almond, fair enough. Night.

I think being a woman when it comes to feminism is people who have been brought up and socialised as women (as they have felt the experience of being raised in a patriarchal society).

This does not apply to females raised as males IMO. Not to detract from their experience in any way - it's just different.

There are also some 'males' who were defined as genitally ambiguous and who have been raised female.

I do not like trans-gender females identifying as females and claiming they want access to all female services and that they are entirely women and should be treated as such. Nor do I want intact 'males' in a female prison or being given employment in women's refuges (in the positions when you have to be female to work there).

In short I don't want people who have lived with all the privileges of being men admitted into all female areas because they are now identifying as being female. There are times when that again looks like an abuse of power.

All the studies indicate is that more work needs to be done. The brain is the most complex object in the known universe, our understanding of it is in its infancy. The sample sizes were too small to make sweeping statements like "woman trapped in a man's body".

The biggest issue the trans community faces is violence at the hands of men. Yet somehow this fact seems to be lost in the sidelines against trendier questions of what to do about bathrooms, and a redefinition of the word woman.

And that's where there's no difference, men are the biggest threat to all women and not only trans-women.

I also think the term trans-women is really helpful and doesn't need to be redefined as women. The trans-woman has faced different and dreadful discrimination and prejudice which is totally due to being trans, to say it's just against women takes away from the trans experience.

It's problematic isn't it? I agree with others - all the research I've seen suggests minimal to zero sex differences in neurology, so what does it mean to "feel like a woman"?

I feel like a person, and what makes me a woman is my biology. So what does that mean for trans women?

And the whole "trans women are women" piece becomes problematic when 70-80% of trans women don't physically reassign, and so you have people with penises demanding access to women only space, and saying that discussing of biological issues affecting born women are trans exclusionary and that biology is irrelevant to being a woman.

I am truly disappointed that the Greens didn't listen to the concerns raised here last week and seem to be competing to see who can be the most politically correct (at the expense of biological women)

Mary, did the womens' brains just have a picture of a dress and some makeup inside them?

I'm not a cis woman I am a person with female chromosomes, a woman. I wasn't raised as a woman I was raised as a person. If I had been born with male chromosomes I couldn't be a woman no matter how much I wanted to be.

All these labels piss me off. I was listening to some 'genderqueer' people on the radio yesterday and wondering why the fuck people are so keen to label themselves? Can't they just live their life in as fulfilling way as possible without trying to skew everyone else's view on biology.

There are plenty of 'intact males' in women's prisons - they're called guards. I would question whether someone who has always felt female (since early childhood),lived adolescence presenting as a girl and following surgery at 18 is now taken by all including sexual partners as female has had exactly the same male privilege and experience in their upbringing as conventional men. And I'm not aware that 'intact males' are queuing up to work in refuges. It is important that refuges, rape crisis etc offer safe space but they do not always do so as things are to disabled, lesbian or BME women. I don't get why trans is such a threat and a problem.

Weren't you raised as a woman Methe ?

I strongly identify that I was raised as a woman (with all the sexism and prejudicial crap associated with it) all my life.

Everything from having to wear pretty dresses and keep them clean to being only able to do home economics instead of woodwork.

I only have experience of being raised female.

techgirl - that is a perfect situation you describe which just doesn't exist. Very few, really really few gender reassign at 18. 80% plus never reassign.

Just reading an article on the BBC about a feminist site that had a ddos attack on International Women's Day.

Found this quote.

""We're more than a website or events - we're a movement. We are providing a safe space to connect, learn and grow with other female-identified people," reads the introduction to the site."

female identified people. Do you mean women? Is it soo hard for a feminist site to be able to say women?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31795501

"In short I don't want people who have lived with all the privileges of being men admitted into all female areas because they are now identifying as being female."

But surely if you're a biological male who identifies as female you have enjoyed very few privileges. The macho world is extremely harsh on men and boys who are "effeminate" and don't follow the norm.

I don't get why trans is such a threat and a problem

It's really because what they're asking of women is too much. They're asking women to abandon the term "woman" and accept their definition at a time when women are only just gaining the space to define woman and womanhood, defined and controlled by men as long as we know of. They don't want us to be able to have penis free spaces when we know that penised people are a threat to women. They don't want us to talk about female biology and its significance to the position of women as exploited labourers all over the world. They want womanhood to be located in gendered displays of femininity rather than in biological reality.

Is that enough, or do you think none of these things should matter to women?

messy - agree and I would say that's down to being trans and not to being female. It's horribly harsh but different.

It is also possible though that they can and still have faked being male (because they've had to, to avoid abuse) and thus still had the privileges accorded with being male in this society.

Messy, the vast majority of the population of the world have no real privilege and are treated harshly. The group 'women' is not a dumping ground for all harshly treated, disadvantaged people.

The group 'women' is not a dumping ground for all harshly treated, disadvantaged people.

Maybe that will end up being the final definition of woman.

I don't care about the trans thing AT ALL - I think go for it. Enjoy. Be a woman. Whatever.

But I get really annoyed when this group tells me I should identify as a 'Cis' woman.
I think that really I've got enough on my plate without yet another group telling me how to fucking define myself.

I mean give over with the 'Ciswoman' nonsense. What does Cis even mean? I'd prefer 'biowoman' - it's git superhero overtones

One of the richest women in the world was born a man.
Sports personalities who are doing quite well...because actually they are biologically men. Producers, promoters..

You're comparing them to other men, but you need to compare them women. And they have had privilege in comparison.

They have been raised as men and you can see the privilege but you can also see that they are socialized differently or they would not have that privilege. It's no coincidence that such a tiny minority are doing quite well compared to billions of women unless you admit there is something different.

I think those within the trans movement wishing to only and solely identify as female is a failure of the trans-movement.

Being a trans-female is an entirely unique experience and trying to shoehorn that experience into 'we're all females now' detracts from that unique experience and fails to celebrate difference.

Being trans is a thing itself. Keep it.

One of the richest women in the world was born a man.

And lived as a man while becoming successful. Of course, it skewers the statistics for women. It's much easier to argue that systemic barriers to women's success have been dismantled and women are now succeeding in all areas when you don't mention that the example of that success lived as a man while succeeding.

Excuse my ignorance about who you might be talking about - is there any chance you're talking about a boxing promoter?

I had no idea they were rich or even that successful. I also don't know any of the others on your list.

Being trans is a thing itself.
Yy

I struggle with the term 'cis', and only because it's used as a derogatory term by the trans community.

I don't feel I should be made to feel bad just because I was born female and I'm ok with that, just as I don't believe someone who was born 'male' but is actually female should feel guilty.

I grew up thinking I could do anything - my gender never came into it - but now I'm actually grown up I feel the weight of my biology suddenly heavy on my shoulders and can look back and see it was there all the time.

Nobody likes a label they didn't choose.

Good point re trans being its own experience.

There have been quite a few threads on this issue recently. I am curious, personally, as to why they chose the prefix 'cis' to differentiate women. It seems to me a really odd choice. It is originally from Latin, in which it meant "on this side of" (eg Cis-Alpine Gaul - the bit of Gaul on this side of the Alps).

I do not like it being applied to me.