Danielle Muscato

[TheEmperorIsNaked]

How is Danielle a woman?

Just how?

I was just coming on to say this too. The difference between Danielle and JAPAB is that one feels like a woman and the other no doubt feels like a man.

Or perhaps not? Who knows? It's a mystery.

The difficulty with feels like = is comes when you try to extended it to other ideas and feelings. If I tell you I feel fat, then saying you should respect that feeling and support my efforts to lose weight (even if I am, according to all physical measures dangerously underweight) would seem to be irresponsible nonsense. Only in the realm of transgender do feelings trump fact.

Welcome to Alice in Wonderland folks and the Humpty Dumpty school of word meanings.

Whereas in the case of accepting someone with anorexia's self identification as a fat person and their consequent intention to lose weight, everyone can see that the risk is that they become malnourished and die.

Yes, but ... surgery to get rid of perfectly healthy organs is something that frequently happens to trans people, and is a well known consequence of identifying as the other sex.

People are not concerned about that. Perhaps people really have to die for it to matter?

After all, if you are a bit chubby, people will be more than happy to confirm your mistaken belief that you are overweight and need to lose weight, and your health may well suffer as result of the diet, but feminists are more or less the only people who worry about body image issues.

So, perhaps the thinking is: "As long as no one dies, everything is alright"?

Sucides get used as "proof" why "misgendering" males who believe they are women is "literally killing" them.

Yes, but ... surgery to get rid of perfectly healthy organs is something that frequently happens to trans people, and is a well known consequence of identifying as the other sex

Buffy's analogy still works though. It must be an awful faff coping with a prosthetic penis , hormones etc but it's presumably doable and liveable with. The person is not making themselves disabled in the way people who develop an obsession about say amputating a limb and carry it through are.

Yes - I think that you've got to the heart of it Buffy.

There seems to be an assumption that biological females, whatever their individual differences, all share "the feeling of being a woman". And that to allow males who also have "the feeling of being a woman" to be identified as women is not taking anything away from or damaging biological women, it is merely making the category "woman" more inclusive and welcoming to the benefit of the male and without detriment to the female.
However, I don't have "the feeling of being a woman". My identity as a woman is connected almost exclusively to physical experiences: the way I look; my memories of puberty; childbearing; knowing that menopause is just around the corner and so on. However, if those experiences do not make me a woman and the only thing which does make me a woman is the "feeling" which I do not have...then what am I? Have I lost my identity as a woman? Is that not a detriment to me, caused by redefining what a woman is?

I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well at all. It just feels that the reason these discussions resonate with me at the moment, is because it seems I am having something taken away from me, that I am being reduced in way that is not being recognised outside of MN. And it makes me feel I should be fighting back, not squishing up to make room.

I feel like some sort of Venn diagram would be useful .

No - that is all really interesting...I'm going to have to do more reading (and thinking)...thank you.

May be if it felt that there was a movement which was genuinely forging a bright new, shiny, modern approach to gender, then I would find it easier accept. But at the moment it feels like the existing patterns are being twisted to fit a future they are unsuited for. So everything feels lumpy, jarring and misshapen and sharp bits keep snagging on tender areas. Maybe these are the birth pangs that all major shifts in societal attitudes go through.

And also the fact that I thought feminism was part of forging a future without gender constructs, but gender constructs seem to be a very big part of the new future.

Right - must stop moaning about it all.

I have no words.

However, I don't have "the feeling of being a woman". My identity as a woman is connected almost exclusively to physical experiences: the way I look; my memories of puberty; childbearing; knowing that menopause is just around the corner and so on. However, if those experiences do not make me a woman and the only thing which does make me a woman is the "feeling" which I do not have...then what am I? Have I lost my identity as a woman? Is that not a detriment to me, caused by redefining what a woman is?

Well I suppose you would have to ask a trans woman what they felt. Have Miranda Yardley or Aofie Hart explained why they felt the need to transition ? I appreciate both of them are happy to be called trans women- but even so- what motivated them?

I said on another thread I can make some sense of what a genuine trans person might be feeling about themselves by comparing it to what a deeply religious person feels. It's of over arching importance and real and tangible for the religious person but I have absolutely no sense of what having a god in your life means.

I'm not sure I agree that it is those physical experiences which make one a woman- I mean I am one because of biology.

Very interesting, PerspicaciaTick and Buffy.

And Lass.

However, if those experiences do not make me a woman and the only thing which does make me a woman is the "feeling" which I do not have...then what am I? Have I lost my identity as a woman? Is that not a detriment to me, caused by redefining what a woman is?

This is so true. It's one thing that I really struggle with in the whole trans narrative. It's weird, because I've never cared about being a woman, I've never 'identified as a woman', it's just who I am. And unlike many others, I don't care too much about the word 'woman'. I'd be happy to be known by another word that meant 'biological female'. But I absolutely hate the idea that I can be classified in the same group as Danielle Muscato. The one and only thing that has made me a woman is my biology. So the word cannot and does not mean 's group that includes Danielle and MrsKC'.

Sorry, random ramblings... Just trying to process my thoughts.

Miranda calls herself a refugee from toxic masculinity. She knows she's not a woman but she doesn't want to be a man either. I think that's a reasonable path to take.

I think for some trans people the 'identity' bit is just about a strong sense of not belonging. I still think there is a huge crossover for some trans people with some types of personality disorder where people often feel this way and often throw themselves into all kinds of different groups or 'identities' to try to appease that feeling. They talk about a strong sense of uncomfortableness and revulsion about their bodies and sense of self. Couple that with a poor ability to see things without idealising or demonizing and I could easily see that might lead to transgenderism. The nature of the actual 'identity' is not the important thing and doesn't have to be real or objective - people will identify with being team A or team B and make up all sorts of reasons why they are team B and why that is the 'best' team.

I think this picture is great. To be a woman, you must both have a woman's biology and be recognised by society as a woman and treated accordingly - if women had men's biology but otherwise had total equality, it would be a very different experience.

TW have neither - they cannot possibly know what it is to be female.

I think most of us dont really think about identifying as a woman (obviously because we just are women) but also because we have a healthily developed sense of self that does not rely so much on any one 'identity' but allows us to be many things and many roles flexibly whilst able to keep a stable sense of who we are throughout that. The absense of that stable sense of self is a feature of some personality disorders so to me that seems why some trans people cling to their identity as a woman.
Obviously that only accounts for some trans people. I think there are many reasons why people might be trans.

I don't know about anyone else but today, I identify as a Leicester FC supporter, I've never been to a game, have only visited Leicester itself a few times over 15 years ago but I feel like a supporter today. Anyone else?

I think you are right Muttaburrasaurus.

It is like with teenagers - when they say they are X thing, they really, really think they are that thing. And not being socially validated as X identity is very hard for them. So adults tend to indulge teenagers and their need for an identity, probably because we see it as a developmental phase where you treat society as if it is your mum and dad.

But I don't think we expect adults to have an identity; we expect them to have a sense of self, and if they are attempting to maintain an identity, that's often a sign of an underlying problem.

Miranda calls herself a refugee from toxic masculinity. She knows she's not a woman but she doesn't want to be a man either. I think that's a reasonable path to take

I see. That is much like what Jen Bob says too.

I don't feel the existence of trans women diminishes my identity or takes anything away from me. I am a woman. I will always be a woman. I don't have to do anything to be a woman. No one looking at me (even if I wore masculine clothes, and stopped shaving my legs and plucking the hairs on my chin) is ever going to mistake me for a man.

I'm in London tonight and have just got back from a concert. A trans woman of about my age got in the lift with me at my hotel. We had a brief conversation of the inconsequential nature one has in hotel lifts. She was perfectly pleasant but obviously trans. I felt sorry for her to be honest.