So im transphobic for saying someone with a penis is biologically male

[LoveMyPatio]

waves to the person on fb who messaged me.

I honestly honestly don't get it. I am a big supporter of trans rights, using their chosen gender toilets etc (which I know some people understandably have a problem with). I am really not transphobic.

And it's also transphobic to say that choosing to transition us a choice.

Please, can I have a sensible explanation of why I'm transphobic because I honestly don't get it.

These are not extremist trans views but fairly mainstream now.

Seriously? :(

So I have to accept I am horribly bigoted and just keep my opinions to myself for fear of offending then.

Lovemy - I wonder if it's that extremists are controlling the narrative, and so that's what general society picks up on. It's not as if your ordinary trans person, going about their life, is going to post loads of extremist TERF stuff on Twitter. By definition, it's the extremists. If that's what those women are reading, then thats what they'll react to. They sound like fools for what it's worth.

Flora - but we don't tend to hear from non-extremists, so how do we know that? Tattooed has said her partner doesn't agree and is just moseying through life like the rest of us.

You're not bigoted. You just recognise biology exists.

OP - I think you have to accept that some people will see your views as bigoted, and you then have to decide how you feel about that. There are plenty of MNers on here who don't care if that label is applied to them online, but daren't have that stigma in RL (eg because it could be professionally damaging). Others are happy for it to be applied in RL too.

TheTattoedHand

Maybe I ask if your OP is FTM?

I translate transphobic as the modern day version of HERETIC!

It shuts people up when they ask awkward questions, or ask for some kind of evidence, or start sniffing loudly when they get a strong whiff of ideology. The shutting up is because the people are afraid of being burnt at the stake flamed within an inch of their life. They know it. And the people yelling transphobic know it.

Different era, same playbook. So much for progress.

There seems to be a huge psychological difference between women who transition and men who do, as well as between the gay men who transition as opposed to the straight ones. Roughly two thirds of transwomen are sexually attracted to women and it's from this direction that the transactivists seem to come. The nasty rubbish they spout: their entitlement to lesbian sex and women's spaces is classically male - and particularly unpleasant men at that. Transmen, however, have been subject to female socialisation and often remind me of the old graffiti: "The meek will inherit the Earth, but only if it's all right with the rest of you."

As for accusations of transphobia, I want everyone to be safe and not subject to injustice. However I'm a feminist, and if transwomen are trying to infringe on the rights of women and girls then I'm for women. Just pointing out that transwomen are male is enough to get you branded a transphobe. Brand away, I say. My shoulders are broad.

a person who "identifies" as female is female

So when Usain Bolt starts to lose races then he can say he identifies as female and start running in the women's races.

Does this mean when I am next at the theatre I can say I identify as a man and use the men's toilets as they never have the queues women's toilets have

I translate transphobic as the modern day version of HERETIC!

Absolutely. And the TERF slurs is all a bit 'Burn the Witch' isn't it?

Need to fish out my copy of the Crucible again....

Tattooed, I'm sorry your partner has been hurt. I'm sure most trans people want the same, to just get on with life, the problem is that the public voice of Trans is one of extremisim.
And seems to be mainly MTT, and a lot of things they see as their rights directly impact women's rights.

And then the dismissal of biological facts…female penis,seriously?

I honestly believe that these trans activists are harming their own cause while blaming everyone else.

Oliversmummy he could do that if he wants to. The TAs are challenging the current pathetic rules that require MTTs to reduce their testosterone to a low level for men (but still 3x higher than most female athletes) on the basis that it discriminates against them versus "other" women who are not required to artificially reduce their hormone levels. The way things are going they will likely win.

florafox I don't think they are particularly mainstream. If you read comment sections that are uncensored then you will find most people don't go along with the rhetoric. The majority will use preferred pronouns/names just to be polite,but they don't believe it. No one really believes Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, do they?
Personally I don't care if I get called transphobic or a terf, but then I'm not on social media and I don't have to pretend as part of my job. No one I know in real life believes any of the I agenda, though they wouldn't be rude or nasty to a translerson (neither would I).I can understand why other people do care , though. When you don't care then they lose that power over you.
In the same vein I don't care if I get called Islamaphobic for criticising or questioning certain aspects of Islam.
OP , carry on using your common sense and logic, as long as you feel safe to do so of course. They can't shut everybody up.

They may not be mainstream but they're being listened to, that's the problem.

In the US, Obama's declared that gender identity officially trumps sex now

noeffing that'a the dominant narrative being reported and doing the lobbying. If others in the trans communities don't speak out, how can we assume they don't agree?

Well, I got a very patronising fb message telling me my understanding is limited and that I should gang out with tg people more to become infrastructure ed fir daring to say "biology is biology" when defining the sex of a child. I know what sex us and what gender us thank you. Gender is subjective, sex is not.

Oh dear, that was littered with autocorrect errors!
Hang out with tg people more to become more informed, for daring to say "biology is biology" when defining the sex of my own child. I know what sex is and what gender is thank you.

Depends where you're looking. In many places these views are mainstream, particularly amongst young people. But I think that the most vocal transactivists are actually really damaging those who suffer from genuine gender dysphoria (rather than being autogynophiles, which is what I think a lot of these middle aged MTT are).

Language is being ludicrously mangled to suit this agenda. But it's so straightforward. Sex is male/female, man/woman. Gender is masculine/feminine. Gender or sex don't equal personality.

So this notion of babies being assigned gender at birth is arrant nonsense if you sue the right language. No health care professional has ever looking at a baby, thought 'ah, this is a masculine baby' and written M for masculine in the baby's notes. Ever. Anywhere. The M or F on toilet doors doesn't stand for masculine or feminine. Unisex toilets are just that, uniSEX. Not gender. HeteroSEXual. Not heteroGENDERal.

So straightforward. Isn't it?

Lovemy - I wonder if it's that extremists are controlling the narrative, and so that's what general society picks up on.

Perhaps that is how it started.

I personally know feminists who otherwise seem like sane people, but subscribe to the "I find it very problematic to call transwomen biologically male" school.

Perhaps they read to many blogs by transwacktivists on the internet, but, yeah, that's the dominant narrative.

There are some few trans who have genuine dysphoria about their body and got surgery, and just leave other people alone (I call those transsexuals, as they actually have a problem with their birth sex), and some even write blogs, but most trans that voice their opinions on the internet seem to be just gender stereotype worshippers.

So this notion of babies being assigned gender at birth is arrant nonsense if you sue the right language. No health care professional has ever looking at a baby, thought 'ah, this is a masculine baby' and written M for masculine in the baby's notes. Ever. Anywhere

True, but babies are actually assigned a gender. Not, perhaps, by the health care professionals, but by the parents, who have a "gender reveal party" with pink or blue cake, buy pink or blue baby clothes, et cetera.
Feminine gender is assigned to female babies, masculine gender is assigned to male babies pretty consistently.

Transwacktivists just don't really seem to realize what this means. They don't acknowledge that it is an act of violence to assign femininity to a girl baby, girl child, or adult woman.
They just claim that transgendered people are speshul snowflakes who are hurt by "misgendering" ... but it is alright to do that shit to boring old "cis" people who fail to claim special snowflake status.

I think a lot of the problems that have arisen are down to the idea that it is an oppressed group and only that oppressed group who get to define what oppression is with regard to their specific group. I see some feminists using this idea to tell men that they don't have a say in defining what misogyny is and while I see some merits in that idea I think it has got us into the current mess with the trans situation. If a trans person says "believing in reality is oppressing me and my trans brothers and sisters" then if you believe in this principle you have to say - "right oh, if you say that's oppression you must be believed". I think some transactivists and MRAs are having a field day abusing this idea.

singingsixpence82, the reason it is seen as an oppressed group is due to the theories it is based on, which are postmodernism and queer theory. Men invented and accepted these ideologies into the academy, because they needed an ideology to oppose feminism. These ideologies say women are oppressed because they like to perform femininity, not because of our biological sex. They also say "feminine" men are more oppressed than "masculine" women. And men can become women, everyone is whatever they say they are. MRA's support these ideologies because they were invented by men precisely to combat feminism.

I believe we can fight these ideologies by pointing out that they contain no structural analysis of oppression, and by revealing how they are manipulative. They cannot stand up to a strong class analysis, and it's proponents know this, which is why they refuse to debate radical feminists. And why the media has to push such a one-sided view.

Vestal, no, they aren't, not necessarily. Gender reveal parties are simply a misuse, common in this nudge nudge wink wink sex is a naughty word days, of the word gender, what is being revealed is the sex of the baby. Sex reveal is what's going in but no-one uses it.

Blue and pink are certainly current Anglo-Saxons markers of a baby's sex, but plenty of people ignore them and either dress their baby in neutral colours, or all the colours of the rainbow, or in the hand-me-downs of an older sibling regardless of sex. My one week old DD was in 'boys' babygrows because that's all I could get in tiny baby size.

So when assigned female at birth is spouted, it is absolute bullshit, because sex is what's important at birth, and because I bet the majority of those spouting this have absolutely no idea what colour babygrow they were put in.

I agree that those families who rigidly adhere to gender stereotypes are the ones where there is far more likely to be a problem with a girl liking 'boys' things, and far more likely to be underlying homophobia, and therefore far more likely for a child to start saying they are the opposite sex, simply to be allowed to be the person they are. That is not gender dysphoria, and frankly those parents deserve a kick up the arse.

No biology not psychiatry textbooks have been rewritten. This is an Internet borne problem.
It will likely pass.
A lot of the experts aren't trained in anything other than some dodgy media studies course.
I think it is best to let people continue to spout unscientific rubbish, particularly with reference to children changing gender. They will talk themselves into a corner.