New anti-trans legislation in North Carolina

[SlowFJH]

Of course it's been driven by the religious right wing. But it does aim to achieve what many posters here appear to advocate - namely that biological males can only use men's toilets and changing rooms etc. Biological females must only use women's toilets and changing rooms. Will it gain wider support?

Yes and someone who has had a hysterectomy still has their memories and personal knowledge of periods, period problems, hormonal birth control, pregnancies, menopause etc.
I think that men don't understand the significance of the biological experiences that women share because there isn't an equivalent set of biological experiences that men share. It's very easy for them to dismiss something like periods by saying "Not all women have periods," totally ignoring the huge impact that periods have on the vast majority of women.

And what percentage of women have never had a single period, anyway?
I know that women with amenorrhea due to PCOS are usually advised to take something to induce bleeding every few months because otherwise they are at increased risk of uterine cancer.

I know someone who has had a total hysterectomy and following chemo will have a double mastectomy, she is still a woman, with two children. She has lived her life as a woman and will continue to do so. Her womanhood is defined by her chromosomes and her genes, which sadly gave her breast cancer, she had an elective hysterectomy. Hopefully she will live a long time post surgery.

As ever JAPAB is just being deliberately offensive and goady.

Yawn.

Hold on.
^
It fell to Melinda Scott, dean of students at UC, to break the news. “Given the serious nature of these incidents and the impact on directly affected students, we made the decision to specifically designate some washrooms throughout the building for those who identify as men and those who identify as women. At the same time, there remains at least one gender-neutral washroom per floor and per house,” Scott said in a statement to The Varsity.^

So actually, still no facilities for, you know, women.

I feel so sorry for those silenced young women at Cooper union.

The 'some women don't have periods thing' confuses me. When women don't have periods it's a problem, it's caused by something going wrong with your body. You experience this as a woman/girl. It's completely different to a trans person.

This might be controversial but I am not a big fan of biology* being the defining factor of what makes a 'woman' anyway. For me it's experience. There are all different kinds of women and girls who have a host of different sexualities and complex identities that don't fit neatly onto a masculine/feminine scale. Nevertheless you develop those identities as a woman, with society treating you in accordance to your sex. Of course how society treats you is determined by the stuff between your legs at birth so I suppose I ultimately agree that biology is the determining factor.

*That isn't to say I don't agree with the biology stuff too.

I find this "some women dont have periods" crap fucking insulting, its always said in a snide point scoring way by men

The vast majority of girls await their periods with excitment (going to be a grownup....thats soon fades) and/or fear

Some wait years, their friends getting them first and wondering where theirs is being asked if they lose their temper "ooh are you on your period"

If you dont get your period you have invasive tests becuase there is something WRONG With you

The medical proffession do tests and shove things where you would rather not have something shoved and give you medicine becasue there is something WRONG

There is something WRONG with a biological woman who doesnt have periods, ds (male) will not undergo those tests as his period will never turn up and the doctor does not see the point , dd (female)may well have to as there is something WRONG

Cant wait for mine to stop esoecially the bit where i become a man

Anyone who uses periods as their point scoring proof that transwomen are women is a fuckwit.

Sorry should have said mostly by men...but i was in full rant mode

I think we could live with the current UK legal definition of woman - from trans women once you have your gender recognition certificate.

And then let us concentrate on ensuring women are not discriminated against which is a much bigger issue than trans issues.

It's just derailing the argument isn't it. Does having periods/having a baby make you more womanly

Well no I am that regardless but my body is designed to do that and if it doesn't it is not because I am not a women it will be down to other reasons

Not because I live the life of a women as I now wear a dress

Eustace2016 Are you saying that once transwomen get their gender recognition certificate they are women ?

I disagree they are not you can't not change sex. A woman is a human female adult. And if that was to be the case then women only spaces are no longer just for women/girls.

But maybe I have taken you post wrongly

YY Rufus

Until a woman fails to conceive a baby, she will spend a lot of time ensuring she has adequate contraception, worrying when her period is late etc etc. It's then that she will go for all kinds of invasive tests and awfulness, because, as a woman, there is a problem.

No man will have this. They might have different tests done, and that's because they're expected to function differently.

Only dickhead men use women's occasional lack of ability to conceive naturally as evidence that MtT are women.

It's just another example of appropriation of women

Eustace, I almost know what you mean and would have agreed with you a few months ago.

I have never thought that a man with a gender recognition certificate was actually a woman. However it seemed to me that the number of men who wanted to be women so much that they would be able to convince a doctor and get a certificate was quite small and that therefore it would be a fairly unimportant issue for women in general.

This is all changing now however as it will be based on self certification. I now think it was legally a mistake to go down this road at all. Sex is not changeable and it shouldn't be possible to alter birth certificates, official documents etc to show a different sex. Gender is a concept that doesn't have a place on official documents at all.

No doctor has ever said "in order to diagnose your stomach pains I'll need to know what gender you identify as, but don't worry, I'm on the right side of history so I'm not going to bother with all that biological sex crap".

Women haven't suffered centuries of discrimination because of their weird desire to wear dresses.

For me being a woman is very much about biology.

And gender isn't voluntarily changeable either. I am expected to behave in certain ways because of the sex I am. I can't just opt of it.

It is highly unlikely that most trans women are actually being treated by people as if they were women because on the whole they don't look like women. And they have been brought up differently.

Much better if we stick to sex to describe and account for our biology and treat gender stereotypes with the same contempt as racial stereotypes.

PenguinVox
Yes and someone who has had a hysterectomy still has their memories and personal knowledge of periods, period problems, hormonal birth control, pregnancies, menopause etc.

What I originally said, with emphasis, was

Some biologically female people will not experience some of the factors you have listed, if they have had parts of themselves removed due to cancer say. Some might never have experienced these things if the parts where removed or otherwise known to be non-functioning before that person became sexually active or was too young.

There are people who will never experience those things the other poster originally listed, and will have no "memory" either because they never experienced them.

My point remains, that if you would not disqualify them from womanhood due to their lack of these experiences then you cannot legitimately use the lack of these experiences to reject transwomen such as Nina's womanhood. Which was what the poster was originally doing.

rufus. You've clarified my thinking for me, thank you!

One of the reasons I am so uncomfortable is that trans-women are identifying with women who have, at some point in their lives, experienced ill health. They want to emulate women with medical conditions, not healthy women.

A transwomen says that they are just like a woman who has had a hysterectomy. But a hysterectomy is not performed because a healthy woman wants it to be. The medical profession won't remove a womb on a wim. It is an agonising decision that most women come to because the medical condition they are experiencing can only be resolved by removing it.

A transwomen says they are just like a woman who can't have babies. Infertility is not a choice a woman makes (we may choose to suppress our fertility, but that is not infertility). It is devastating and life altering for many women who experience it.

It's offensive to me that men who feel uncomfortable in their own bodies are choosing to identify as women who are disadvantaged and impacted by ill health. Why not identify as healthy women? Why not demand that medical science overcomes the barriers to men having periods, babies and menopause? Why choose to identify with a condition that many women work tirelessly to avoid?
It minimises the impact of female health conditions that lead to hysterectomy and infertility.

My point remains, that if you would not disqualify them from womanhood due to their lack of these experiences then you cannot legitimately use the lack of these experiences to reject transwomen such as Nina's womanhood. Which was what the poster was originally doing.

It's quite simple they are women just as much as I am because they were born female. I shall dismiss Nina's womanhood because Nina was born male and you can not change your sex. You can change how you present yourself but it does not change the fact that you can not change your sex and I am not going to pretend and play into someone's delusional ideas when it impacts the safety and the need women and girls have.

Nina is a transwomen what do I have in common we wear make and heels that's about it, my body works differently, I am treated differently (please let's not pretend Nina passes as a woman) and socialisation has been very different.

if you would not disqualify them from womanhood due to their lack of these experiences then you cannot legitimately use the lack of these experiences to reject transwomen such as Nina's womanhood. Which was what the poster was originally doing.

Of course you can.

Human beings with XY chromosomes are not genetically programmed to experience those things. Human with XX chromosomes are.

When humans with XX chromosomes don't experience those, it is because there is an underlying medical reason why not. When humans with XY chromosomes don't experience them, it's because they are healthy.

Why would a healthy person want to identify as having a medical problem?

"Nobody gets "disqualified from womanhood" on the basis of medical conditions JAPAB and that's an offensive thing to say to women who have those conditions."

Very offensive. How often do we see people trying to turn women on each other whenever they dare to have opinions they dislike!

No women are disqualifying other women, no-one here has said transwomen are bad people, simply that they are a subset of men not a subset of women in the same way that transmen are a subset of women.

JAPAB - Womanhood is biology and life experience. These are broad groups, at least some of which are shared by all women. Transwomen share none of these with us women.

Biology : Women are adult human females, just like cows are adult female cattle, hens are adult female chicken, and does are adult female deer. Transwomen are not female therefore they can't be women.

Note: FEMALE is a biological description that means OF they sex that CAN bear young or make eggs. A woman who has had hysterectomy or is sterile for whatever reason is still female as she is of the sex that can bear young or make eggs, as opposed to the sex that can make sperm. FYI, we call the latter MALE.

Life experience : As a man, you are obviously ignorant of what this entails. It means we are raised differently even in the most liberal families, and experience sexual harassment from an early age. We are groped, attacked, held down, ridiculed, talked about as sluts for daring to have sex. We quickly learn to minimise these risks. Our opportunities are relatively limited and shaped by expectations of future motherhood. Even the very few of us who don't have functional reproductive organs are treated in this way. Transwomen don't share this life experience with us women, either.

Do you understand now that you are talking nonsense with your "But some women have had hysterectomies so transwomen are women too"? If not, I have some free time today and am feeling generous, so let me know and we can continue with your education at your leisure.

Most women throughout history and possibly even most women in the world now haven't/don't wear heels and make up, and my experience is that more often than not women don't wear trousers. The experience of wearing makeup will be very different for trans woman. I can't think of any experiences that are universally shared between trans women and women.