Trans Understanding Help

[Itsallveryconfusing]

Hello.

Please be gentle as I'm not very knowledgeable about this but I'm trying to learn.

My eyes have been opened due to the recent threads like the I am Spartacus ones. I have always been very liberal and believed that someone can be born in the wrong body when it comes to makes feeling like a woman etc. I've come to see that gender is more a social concept.

I've been speaking with DH about this who, again, is very liberal and believes in equality and is pro women rights, although his workplace is very male orientated. He's not afraid to argue against the party line that women are weaker emotionally etc. His view on trans is very much live and let live he firmly believes that if someone wants to identify as female or male then they should be allowed to, as it must be awful to feel trapped. He was shocked that my view is changing and that my views are more in standing with hard right wingers who look at equality is a dirty word.

Sorry for the essay but I'm struggling with what I know is correct in my head with the concept that people should be happy and if that makes them happy then I should respect.

I know of one transwoman who pretended to have had miscarriages which struck me as a desperately sad thing for anyone to do. You'd have to either be a psychopath or an incredibly sad person to do that.
As for cis being a hate crime, I suppose it could be if it was used persistently to upset a particular individual. As with other forms of misgendering I think once by mistake is fine (as many non-trans people do use cis) but to do it in order to persecute someone on the basis of their gender identity would not be okay.

The tampon story is fake, but there are TW who are adamant that they have menstrual cycles, when it is pointed out that that simply can't be happening, because a woman's cycle is based on more than taking oestrogen tablets, then accusations of being a TERF are chucked about.

Yes xeno I remember a bonkers blog about a TW claiming she got PMT and menstrual cramps.

But I don't think we can take the ramblings of one clearly delusional individual as extrapolate that to "lots of TW"

No, more than one certainly isn't lots of, I agree.

The problem is that you can be a transwoman and think you're Queen Victoria or a poached egg or something. So judging all transwomen by the delusions of a few is ridiculous.

But, equally, calling someone transphobic because they will not collude in the delusion is equally ridiculous.

Transgenderism and feminism cannot ever be reconciled.

Ever.

I don't want men in women's spaces. I don't care how many cosmetics, dresses or surgeries they've had.

Women have fought long and hard to get space away from male violence. Men in dresses are still men and they've shown that the same violence happens whether a man is wearing a suit or mascara and a skirt.

We women have those spaces for a reason.

Here in Vancouver, a man in a dress decided to attack the single rape crisis centre run by and for women. He went to their meeting and insisted he should work there as a counselor. When the women blatantly said 'no.' He threatened them.

For 10 LONG YEARS he involved this tiny shelter with little funds in two major legal battles, stripping them of what little monies they had and hurting women who desperately needed this small space. He psychologically stripped them with all his legal demands.

Ultimately the shelter won the battle. It was a small rape crisis center set up for WOMEN ONLY but this ONE MAN made their lives a living hell for TEN LONG YEARS.

No men in women's spaces. None. No exceptions.

MNHQ have just posted on the Spartacus thread, BTW

Saw this article:
www.elle.com/life-love/a28374/transgender-class-le-femme/

Surely the men in this article can see that they are not really women. Surely they can see that real women (that they see and interact with in their own lives) don't behave or live like this.

This is fantasy land - that some of these people drop the charade to go about their real lives at work is proof of that. I don't understand the narrative "woman trapped in a mans body" as everytime I read a transgendered persons' account it is just a collection of stereotypes (both transmen and transwomen).
The article both made me laugh at their ridiculous notion of womanhood and sad that they think so little of the women they see and interact with.

That article is dreadful - it just smacks of men putting on womanface.

I very much believe that TW should live as they feel happiest as long as it doesn't infringe on women's rights, but that article really made me uncomfortable - it feels like appropriation and mocking women. It is very, very far from my experience of being a woman.

Fetishistic wankery (lol, autocorrect changed it to Sanskrit) about sleeping with high heels on. Who the fuck does that?

I wonder why the men in that article go to work as men

Hi. In many places it is now based on your belief that you are Trans. The need for documentation, hormones and the wait time has been removed as it is considered discrimination. Also Trans can say they are non binary so how they are dressed means not a lot compared to what they say as people are not allowed to be profiled based on their wardrobe or hair. . I know this from a personal situation. :-)

There was a really annoying article on the Guardian site about how prejudice and violence affected transwomen so badly that many of them had to "go stealth" to avoid negative consequences...

In other words, they just went on looking like men and nothing bad happened (although of course they were really, truly women all the time). Gosh, that's a super power that all us other women could benefit from. Bit like a squid: release cloud of altered gender and escape!

I hadn't realised that I could have got out of being raped by just telling him I was a bloke. I could have evaded sexual discrimination at work by simply changing sex... Lot of tricks I've missed.