This is getting out of control - Ladyfest

[Chickpeasandpakchoi]

Has banned the use of the word 'clitoris' at its feminist festival as it it trans exclusionary.
www.feministcurrent.com/2016/06/03/german-ladyfest-clitoris-exclusionary/
I hope it is boycotted by women. How DARE they tell us we cannot celebrate and talk about our female anatomy?

BUT, I will be using the word clitoris in my conversations with my friends...because I'm going to tell them everything I have learned in this thread....

I don't even know where to start with all this. I have been thinking about it all a lot since the no-platforming of Germaine Green and I'm finding it all utterly boggling.

One thing I'm sure of though, no-one should be able to tell us what terminology we use to talk about our own bodies.

Sorry, for one of my first posts here, I am not appearing very articulate but I look forward to discussing this more with you all!

Petal you sound like me 8 weeks ago. Since reading this stuff on here I have suddenly become very aware of how women's rights and spaces etc are changing.

A couple of years ago we had a man dressed as a women join my work. He was not having any treatment but wore a skirt. He was allowed to use the ladies toilets. I was horrified. I had to attend meetings and found it very hard to see him as a woman when he wasn't. HR were no use and told me hard luck. Thankfully he had to leave the job for something completely unrelated and life has gone back to normal. However I do know that if it happens again I will raise the issue of my right to have a safe space.

Gosh,hello there,that is so bizarre,it's the whole PC thing,it's gone to far the other way,one poster on this thread ,or another I was reading,said she thinks it's a mental illness,and it shouldn't be treated with surgery but with medication,,now that made me think of all the pro Anna sites ,where they say it is a life style choice to be anorexic ,but we all know they are mentally ill....I wonder if in years to come,we will be treating trans people in in patients in hospitals for mental illness

Petal, I mainly learned about this from Mumsnet. There are a lot of informative threads on the feminism boards.

You might find these helpful too:

An introduction to the difference between biological sex and gender identity, by feminist philosopher Rebecca Reilly-Cooper.

Stephanie Davies-Arai explains the implications of the Women & Equalities Committee's recent transgender equality report.

Just for you dione

www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/1122689/menstruation-matters-transgender

www.theestablishment.co/2016/05/31/yes-trans-women-can-get-period-symptoms/

Here's one example of how discussing vulvas is transphobic
claremontindependent.com/students-condemn-project-vulva-for-transmisogyny/

“Society is not comfortable with the image of a penis on a woman

That is because a woman does NOT have a fucking penis. A man does

The thing that baffles me most is how a handful (in population terms) of special snowflakes try to dictate to half the world's population - and get taken seriously by people who should know better.

The article about the vulva cupcakes is shocking. In particular, the expectation of one of the opponents to the event that simply because a transwoman had expressed her discomfort, the organisers should reevaluate their stance. Just this mind blowing sense of entitlement that if one transwoman doesn't like it, it shouldn't happen. The laughable assertion that the making of vulva cupcakes as 'incredibly violent to transwomen' - how? And the rather telling remark that the vulva cupcakes would be 'ugly', revealing how this person regards female anatomy - as something disgusting. It's blatant misogyny, bizarrely defended through some incomprehensible twists of logic as being victims of 'transmisogyny'. And throwing in completely unfounded accusations of racism as well - anything to depict themselves as victims in order to get their own way on everything.

To be fair, no ones genitals are exactly pretty

Petal I read about this on Mumsnet. You're asking all the right questions

A health page that I really love has just started a discussion on FB about periods. It refers to 'people' who have periods throughout. The comments are full of 'thank you for keeping this important discussion gender neutral'. Aaaaaargh.

Have read all the articles you have highlighted.....this is what I'm thinking,all the tinkering in the world,wear a dress ,use a woman's loo,invade our spaces and call yrself a woman,have surgery to remove yr penis,Adams apple ,testicles,..(.if you go this far and many CHOOSE not to)....non of that makes you a woman,it mimics a woman's body,but does not ensure the person becomes a woman ,because the internal sex organs that create and grow a baby and cause mensuation can not be created in a male body....so on the outside the male is able to pretend to be female,but the inside sex organs stay male....Or am I wrong and have I missed something??

empressofthevulvacupcakes - I'd always wondered about her username!

Humans reproduce sexually - this works by having 2 types of human. Males are the type of human who produces sperm and females who are the kind who produce ova and gestitate the child. There are a few people born with intersex conditions which is a biologically abnormal for our species.

Wearing a dress, having cosmetic surgery, genital surgery, having some kind of 'feeling' you are actually the other sex, having to have surgery like a hysterectomy for medical reasons nor going through the menopause alters a persons sex.

Anyone got any links to the differences in male and female brains....there has got to be some.so what ever brain you are born with,whatever body the brain grows in,that is yr gender and yr sex....to properly change from male to female surely you would need to do the following(which I don't believe is possible as yet)outside the body sex change,a womb transplant in to a male body and a brain transplant from a female brain.

To be fair, no ones genitals are exactly pretty

Speak for yourself. But no, I'm not going to show personal proof to the contrary.

There's no such thing as a female brain Petal40. At least that's what most people on here believe. The science largely backs that up. When I say largely, there were a few studies a good few years ago now that suggested that there might be a difference between male and female brains but they never really came to anything and now the scientific consensus seems to be that brains are not "male" or "female" in any real way. Other than to say that a brain is female if it exists in the body of a female person.

6pence,I'm amazed at that,totally

Try Cornelia Fine Delusions of Gender. It looks a huge range of research into sex differences between brains.

Essentially - there is no good evidence there are any innate differences between male and female brains. Brains are amazingly adaptable and the most plausible explanation of any differences that might be found in every study Ive ever seen on this subject is that years of socialisation in a gender biased culture have caused them. Many dont even find any differnces.

That's like,...no..I'm going to have to find some studies to prove otherwise..my brain is female,totally.unless it's bloody good conditioning that's like saying I would be exactly the same person,brain wise if I had a male body,absolutely not...my brain is female..

I can't accept that....I'm sure when I was at school,long time ago,I was taught the male brain was bigger and more devolved in some areas ,where the female Brain showed different devoplment in different areas ....am I going mad ,or can anyone else remember being taught that?

It's not really saying that petal - if you were born male you'd have been treated completely differently by society and would have grown up receiving very different messages and social conditioning. So you would have ended up a completely different person.

What is it about your brain that makes you think it's female?

You would also have faced a very different physical reality and this would have also made you a different person.