I have more stupid questions

[Albadross]

What do trans activists generally say when asked how anyone can transition between two identities that are not universally defined or felt the same way even between people whose sex matches that identity?

How can you be born with the wrong one of something that is constructed differently for everyone?

And with the brain scan thing, how do we know that since the brain is plastic, how we see ourselves in terms of our gender may affect the physical structure of the developing brain?

OP, you might be better posting that question on a TRA site. This is Mumsnet.

I did say they were stupid questions

I don't understand the question. Can you explain more simply?

I could tell you how I answer the question, from my personal feminist position. No idea what a TRA would say.

I just wondered if there was a 'thing' that TRAs tend to say when challenged on those things. Apologies it's quite hard to get what's in my head out through actual words, it just feels like a nonsense to say you feel you're something you've never experienced, and something which isn't standardised beyond a few stereotypes. Argh that sounds too obvious - but how could I feel like a unicorn if I've only ever seen unicorns?

I think that's a very valid question to ask OP. I have no idea as I've never felt like that. I do genuinely think that there are certain pp who feel like they've been born in the wrong body and for them it's a source of great distress. I've personally known a few trans people ( NOT transactivists ) and I have the utmost compassion and respect for them. I have a friend who has spent £15k on facial feminisation surgery as she just wants to ' pass' as a woman in her daily life. Many pp take decades to come to terms with how they feel which is why you see many pp transitioning in their 40s as they feel they can no longer live a lie.

I don't think it's a stupid question OP. I think that if you want a question answered from a TRA perspective, asking it on a TRA site would be a good place to start. Asking it here is a bit like asking a Tory forum what a Corbinista thinks.

It's a tricky one to answer because the transactivist argument bears up to no scrutiny at all, but I think it's along these lines

• there are innate sex based brain differences between men and women. MTT have ladybrain and are born in the wrong body
• but sex and biology and just social constructs anyway and feelings and gender identity are the thins which are real. So whatever you feel is what you are. As long as this is limited to sex. It's doesn't apply to race or species
• if you identify as female you are what a female is and have always been female (hence some men insisting they are lesbians with a "female penis" with an utterly straight face). Any lesbian refusing to have sex with this ladystick is a transphobic bigot
• anyone who disagrees with any of this is also a transphobic bigot, responsible for all violence against trans people and indeed genocide. This then justifies issuing rape and death threats because knowing that men aren't women is the same as violence, literally.

Yes but Dione if you ask transactivists and you get the form of words slightly wrong you will be told you are a bigot and roundly abused. I would stay well away personally. There are plenty of nice reasonable transwomen around but most of them give social media a wide berth for exactly that reason.

It's not that I don't think people should transition, more that I find it hard to figure out how you would know you wanted to transition to something that you've never experienced. I have an understanding of what it's like to feel 'wrong', because I'm not NT, but since I don't know what being NT is like, I don't feel I could just do my NT 'performance' and then I'd actually be NT...

Yes Countess that's why I wanted to ask here

Trans Activists don't umderstand the difference between sex and gender. You can be a man who prefers 'female gendered' activity, thpughts, behaviours etc , and vice versa whilst still being the biological sex you are.

Trans people confuse having behaviour, thoughts, feeling that are gendered the other sex's also wamt that to be regarded as changing sex, which is bollocks.

The problem i have with this, is it limits the growth of say men to become more emotional, or women more analytical say, because it fights to pigeonhole gendered behaviour thoughts and feelings and align them with sex..and then reject it.. which actually reinforces and polarises gendered behaviour and ties it to sex.

We jave progressed an awful long way to allow men to have previously female gendered thoughts, behaviours, feelings, and women to exhibit and use male thoughts, behaviours, feelings without it de sexing, or changing sex. Now, because of a feeling that men had advantages that women deserved, we see many negative behaviours gendered as male behaviours, and condemned, and many positive behavious as female gendered behaviours, and celebrated...ostensibly in an attempt to equalise the balance, but in fact this means thing like a man who doesnt feel like he is a violent abusive thug starts to feel he isnt a 'man' and a woman who doesnt feel smart beautiful sassy and collaborative starts to reject not just feminine gendered behaviours but actually being a woman.

hth

scary yes it does appear they have confused those - but is there really nobody trans who has a decent argument? That seems surprising to me somehow.

I'm sorry, but I think this encouragement of MTF trans is so fucking damaging.
Ok, I mean, people are people, do what makes you happy or whatever, but it just enforces gender stereotypes, I though as a society we were supposed to be moving away from gender stereotypes, but apparently all it takes to be a woman is fancying wearing make up, high heels and a dress

WeDo I agree - but it's sort of like religion, where I have friends who are deeply religious and believe things that make me question their ability to think logically, and yet I respect them, so I have to respect their choice to believe whatever they want. I'd choose to abolish gender and religion personally.

is there really nobody trans who has a decent argument?

There probably are trans people who have very good arguments, but they are not here. The majority of the answers that you will get here are from an ideologically opposite pov to TRAs.

Dione people here seem to have engaged in a lot of debate in a lot of different forums, so I wondered if they'd encountered any. It doesn't seem like one can ask those questions on TRA forums as PP have said.

Of course you can ask questions OP! I have found that most people are happy to answer such questions. And sometimes you don't even have to ask. TRA forums already have threads where transpeople discuss their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Albadross

The answer you will get is that they have always felt female inside. They gravitated towards female childhood friends, liked wearing girls clothes and felt happier playing with dolls. When you point out that many women don't do this, and therefore it's not a definition of women, they will then perhaps move on to gender dysphoria, how they hated their developing bodies. This also doesn't bear scrutiny, as many trans people do not have gender dysphoria.

It is impossible to get an answer about why they feel like a woman. It is just a feeling. Of course they can't feel like something they have never experienced, nor will they ever, ever experience what it is like to actually be a woman as they don't have the biology. So you're left with stereotyped behaviour and a feeling.

This is one of the reasons why many people think it is a mental illness.

And of course a lot of people who now call themselves trans, in old money would be called transvestite fetishists.

If you ask a transwoman what is a woman, they will say a woman is anyone who says they are. You could also try asking them, if they are women, what are the similarities between them and you. That's simply not answered and you will get blocked.

If you ever get a proper answer, please let me know.

Dione with respect, it doesn't seem like you want me to ask it here, on MN, where I'm already a member and I know people.

PS more reasonable transwomen will tell you they have gender dysphoria and they feel more comfortable performing the role of a woman. They don't say they are actually women and I have no interest in accessing women's spaces.

*they, not I

'A guy called Helen' and Miranda Yardley I what I would call genuine transwomen. They know they are not women, but they feel more comfortable living as one. They have no interest in eroding women's rights. Far from it.

Helen said on her blog to TRAs - 'if you want women to stop seeing you as in entitled, abusive men, stop acting like it' (or words to that effect).

OP, I assumed that you were relatively new and wanted wanted a real and accurate answer to your question. It appears I was wrong.

I've read Miranda's posts and I'm glad there are transwomen like her and Helen who can be objective without assuming any challenge is transphobia. I don't want to appear disrespectful I guess.

I wish I could find a role i was comfortable with!

Albadross, the answer to your question is that TRA don't have robust, factual replies to these questions. This is why their main responses to challenge are first to waffle and invent facts then, if the questioner persists, to shut down debate, to silence and to claims of transphobia. If blocking, silencing and insults don't do the trick, TRAs typically move on to rape threats and instructions to "Die in a fire, cis scum."

There are no cohesive, logical answers to your questions, so you will never get them. Watch out for debates between transwomen and gender critical feminists. You won't see one because every time one is promoted the transwoman drops out at the last minute. Transwomen will never expose themselves to factual scrutiny.

You're absolutely right. A man can no more know what being a woman is like than I can know what being a man feels like. The difference is that I wouldn't dream of being so presumptuous as to think I could know anything about being a man. It seems to me the very nature of being trans objectifies the other sex. It exhibits arrogance and lack of respect.