General Trans thread part 2

[ChiefClerkDrumknott]

Following on from this one General Trans thread
Because I'm not Elsa and can't let it go

Even a quick read of this thread suggest there is a lot of anger. ..
Some examples...

You don't need examples. I told you that we are angry

This "debate" between radical feminism and the trans community is being seen by mainstream as a particularly nasty fight with some issues, risks and fears (on both sides) being deliberately exaggerated.

And who do you think started the fight? I think you'll find some rad fem fears stem from being threatened with death and rape when they bring up objections to some of these 'issues' you glibly dismiss. Do you not think that's an understandable reaction? By the way, have you popped over to Twitter or Tumblr yet to plead with 'TERF' killers to be less aggressive?

As mentioned earlier, I may be completely wrong. Perhaps the best solution is to get even angrier, even more offensive and aggressive...

You know what, as I said we are angry and we are 'aggressive', if you term defending women's rights vocally and loudly and consistently aggressive

Hear, hear, Lurcio.

The biological differences between men and women, male and female humans, are the root cause of all male domination and oppression of women.

If men were not generally physically bigger and stronger than women; if women were not uniquely vulnerable in terms of pregnancy and childbearing, then men would never have been able to assume the power they have had over women for - what, 6000 years? Is it something like that since the last matriarchal societies were extinguished and universal patriarchy took over?

Over the course of thousands of years of partriarchy, the power has become societal as well as physical - women's minds have been dominated just as much as (or even more than) our bodies, and the power imbalance has deepened in many respects as it has been continuously reinforced generation after generation.

I think women are so used to misogyny as being part of the air that we breathe that we often don't even notice it ourselves, don't even know how much of it we've internalised.

And it all derives from that root cause of physical, biological difference. When you start saying that biology doesn't matter, or isn't crucial, you deny the reality of how and why women have been oppressed for so long, and you thus perpetuate it.

'However you personally define gender, it's undeniable that conceptualizing it through language brings it into a social rather than the purely natural sphere.'

Sadgirlsclub, male and female animals are also conceptualised through language and so are part of a social sphere. Humans conceptualise everything through language. We can still make a distinction between concepts that represent things which are materially real (sex) and concepts that represent things which are wholly socially constructed (gender).

almondpudding i'm not sure you entirely caught my drift. My point is that because we conceptualize everything through language, it's imposile to designate anything as entirely material since these things also contain traces of social meaning. Though the word "female" might have a 'real' referent in the world ie in one definition, a person with a vagina, it is by way of the word itself - female - that this aspect of their anatomy is afforded primacy over any other.

' i'm not sure you entirely caught my drift.'

I did.

'My point is that because we conceptualize everything through language, it's imposile to designate anything as entirely material since these things also contain traces of social meaning. '

That is not what you said at all. You made a strange distinction between people and other species.

But anyway, I have already agreed that our understanding of material things are conceptualised through language. We can still make a distinction between concepts based in material reality (trees, vaginas, death) and wholly socially constructed concepts like gender.

Though the word "female" might have a 'real' referent in the world ie in one definition, a person with a vagina, it is by way of the word itself - female - that this aspect of their anatomy is afforded primacy over any other.

Nope. No idea what that means. But the word 'female' does not mean person with a vagina anyway. Didn't we just cover that in the whole discussion of female plants and animals?

Sorry did not put part of your words in quotes there. This bit...

'Though the word "female" might have a 'real' referent in the world ie in one definition, a person with a vagina, it is by way of the word itself - female - that this aspect of their anatomy is afforded primacy over any other.'

almond I made that distinction in response to another post in the thread. I don't think comparing human women to female plants or animals is relevant or useful to a discussion of gender issues in any way.

How can it not be useful? Our understanding of what male and female are come from male and female plants and animals. Without male and female, there is no gender.

In a world without sex there would be no need for gender sadgirlsclub - Gender only exists because of the male/female sex distinction. No?

Agree with talking 100%. But transactivists will accuse us of being over interested in what's in other people's pants, or reducing women to be walking vaginas, or even (as lesbians who don't want to sleep with male bodied TW have been called) "vagina fetishists"

It's misogyny to say that women are only vaginas. It is fact to say that only women have vaginas.

I notice that sadgirls has completely sidestepped the "material reality" of women's relative physical vulnerability to men, and how that is the root cause of all social inequality between male and female.

Yes, Hermione that sad old bleat of "I don't care what's in someone else's pants; why are you obsessed with what they've got between their legs".

If what they've got between their legs could cause you to become pregnant, that matters for starters; and crucially, the average person with a penis is going to be physically bigger and stronger than the average person with a vagina, and will also have internalised thousands of years of patriarchy. Which has given them the message that as men, they come first. Their wants, their needs, their feelings all matter in a way that women's don't.

Sadly, us vagina-bearers have also been conditioned in this way, so we too think we matter less on a deep, unconscious level (that's got to be one of the reasons behind the hordes of women who, lemming-like, are rushing to throw themselves and their sisters under the trans bus).

That's why we women need to have some spaces and services that are segregated strictly by biological sex alone. For us. Because we have been getting fucked over for literally millennia, and we fucking matter too.

Does anyone actually know travellingbird? Have I just given my name to someone who might send me death threats for believing male/female is a physical distinction?! Just realised she hasn't commented on anything on this thread other than to appear and offer to add my to some fb groups. I'm not very good at this yet.

She's posted on other threads on MN, but why are you giving out your real name? Set up a second FB account.

Too late now! Oh well, I've yet to do any more than comment on a few threads and there are still plenty of issues relating to the debate that I'm undecided on.

Yes. If you're worried about having given out your real name, change your user name on here.

Will do soon, thanks!

Have I just given my name to someone who might send me death threats for believing male/female is a physical distinction?!

It is terrible that this is a thing we actually have to worry about.

@sadgirlsclub: What is your point? I cannot seem to find it. Are you arguing "male and female don't originate in biology" guy is right?

I've yet to do anything other than chat and pool some sources. I hope to write to my MP and in all honesty being able to achieve or even try to achieve any more than that is slim.

Sixpence, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Travellingbird does use phrases like cis, so is presumably into that kind of belief, but she's a very civil poster. If you're worried, just change your user name!

Thanks almondpudding - I will do so in the near future...

This might help distinguish between biological descriptors, biological determinism and feminist analysis.

The author didn't have room to add their analysis of transgenderist thinking, so it's here:

Transgenderism: For most people, sex determines personality. However, for a handful of special people, personality (somehow) determines sex. Either way, the vast majority of men were born to dominate women & the vast majority of women were born to serve men.

A bit speechless about this book

www.transgendertrend.com/introducing-teddy-new-trans-book-kids/

Going back to have a look at the site

I'm really upset about this video doing the rounds on social media, where a young trans person at a thing run by "Mermaids" (the trans cult recruitment centre youth support organisation) talks about homosexuality as "a deviant kind of thing", and pushes a whole load of other misogynist stuff.

The homophobia in mainstream trans activism is getting more and more blatant as time goes by. I shouldn't be surprised by anything I see now, and yet I am.

That's awful.

Why are they suggesting gay kids are deviant?

That video is depressing, ArcheryAnnie.

Because they've grown up hearing constant messages that it's ok (and terribly brave and revolutionary) to be a trans boy but to be a lesbian or otherwise nonconforming girl is to be the lowest of the low?

As well as in families, there's a lot of pressure within the LGBT+ community online, too, telling young butch lesbians that they are "really" trans men. (And it's been going on so long that some of these young women are now detransitioning, and coming clean about how they were pressured and predated on.)