Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Cis labels

261 replies

sooperdooper · 24/04/2017 21:57

I'm kind of new to reaching 'Peak Trans' and I had this thought...

So if, as the trans lobby keeps repeating 'trans women are women', why would they need to call biological women 'cis'?

If they really are female there would be no need for a distinction because by simply 'identifying' as female they would be

So they've made the distinction themselves by labelling biological women cis, doesn't that make the whole discussion about 'trans women being women' invalid by their own admission?

Sorry if this is totally obvious but I'm trying to work through my own thoughts on this

OP posts:
Datun · 29/04/2017 00:17

A few weeks ago I would have found Phyllis's viewpoint almost incredible.

But having read some of the posters on the Exposing Trans-activists Facebook page but particularly the Critical Feminist Facebook page (it's less of a bloodbath) I see more and more women the same.

I was under the impression that the libfem trans allies were all just blind zealots. But as I see more of them questioning the ideology, many (not all) just come across as terribly nice and desperate to make everyone happy.

It's almost like watching someone pulling masking tape off their psyche. It's hurting, but with each incremental step their eyes are opening.

I see women explaining to them how the ideology genuinely harms women. Them mentally connecting the dots of their sometimes, less than ideal experience, is painful and bonding simultaneously.

Gallavich · 29/04/2017 07:51

Phyllis you weren't sexually assaulted because your gender identity is woman. It's because you're female.
Absolutely everybody can see whether 99.5% of people are male or female. A rapist (who is male) can identify his potential victims by their female sex which is obvious to all. Not because they 'identify as women'

You say that your belief that transwomen are women is your truth. And that's ok. But the statement 'males are not women' is also logically, factually true based on the definition of the word woman. Trans ideology insists that the definition of the word woman has to change, to include males, but whatever you name them, women exist and they do not include males.
If trans get the word woman to keep we could call ourselves something else and we still wouldn't be male. None of us.

PhyllisNights · 29/04/2017 09:58

Thank you all, it means a lot.

I don't see the LGBT friends in person anymore (I'm not going out to bars/clubs because I'm pregnant), but they do crop up on Facebook and WhatsApp. Social media really does play a huge part in all of this.

I do struggle with what is fact when it comes to this issue. My conscious bites away at me all the time. I know trans women are technically men, but I find myself constantly comparing trans to being gay. It's something that I can't seem to help.

Gallavich · 29/04/2017 10:18

Phyllis, that's really common. I struggled with this for ages. It's cognitive dissonance- trying to hold two contradictory views at the same time.
Being trans isn't like being gay. Being gay is observable, measurable and exists in all human populations without reference to culturally constructed gender roles. Being trans is self defined, not measurable and exists only in relation to culturally constructed gender roles.

Datun · 29/04/2017 11:35

Yes, being gay doesn't insist on everyone else changing their perception. I automatically accept someone is gay if they say so.

And gay people aren't asking for the rights of others. They want their own rights. Their own place. They're taking nothing. Their rights don't clash with the rights of anyone else.

On the contrary. Their own rights are being eroded by the trans-ideology. Lesbians expected to have sex with men, for instance.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 29/04/2017 11:43

That was very well explained, Gallavich. As I've said before, Phyllis, I'm a lifelong LGB supporter and I've been where you are. My initial reaction to the trans phenomenon was uncritical support. It was only when I found out more and things started to jar, that I began to change my mind.

Thing is, gay people only want to be free to be themselves. They don't require surgery or serious medication, whereas trans people feel the need not to be themselves, but to be someone completely different. This overwhelming need to escape the self - even reality - is deeply unhealthy. You see it in sexually abused teenage girls who "escape" sexualisation through transition, you see it in ex-forces husbands and fathers who give themselves a new pornstar name and, in a seemingly out of character move, desert their families.

So that's one difference between LGB and T. Another is that gay people, in fighting for their rights, never sought to remove anyone else's. For example, gay men, who genuinely do sometimes face violence in the loo, never insisted women share ours with them.

The transgender lobby, however, is all about removing rights from others - overwhelmingly women and girls. And this has its roots in the claim that "TW are women", because once you accept that then men gain access to every sex-segregated area: sports, showers, prisons, psychiatric wards where women are particularly vulnerable, refuges. Everything.

Trans rights directly affect women's rights, and more and more women are fighting back. It's not a fight women started. Had transactivists not insisted on being treated exactly like women then we could've run along with no real conflict. But now we're in the position that any dissension from the trans cult's approved language and agenda gets you threats, insults and may even cause real life problems.

The third main difference is children. Had LGB campaigners tried to claim that toddlers were clearly lesbian I can't imagine how bad the reaction would have been. Co-opting kids to identity politics is a new low. It is this last manifestation that I think will eventually halt the trans juggernaut, when people become aware how unethical and experimental the "treatments" are. I just hope it happens before too many young adults damage their healthy bodies and sexual function.

WankingMonkey · 29/04/2017 13:34

Absolutely everybody can see whether 99.5% of people are male or female. A rapist (who is male) can identify his potential victims by their female sex which is obvious to all. Not because they 'identify as women'

This reminds me of the heartbreaking account of a transmans rape (I don't have the link but it was posted on here) where they told the rapist over and over that they were a man but the rapist did not take that into account and continued to rape them...

Gender identity means nothing.

RogueBiscuit · 29/04/2017 14:01

I've mentioned this previously but my daughter became an avid supporter when a boy at her school claimed he was a girl. She didn't know him prior to this, but suddenly he was the centre of attention in the girls group and was allowed to listen to them talking about personal issues like boys and periods.

My daughter became totally wrapped up in it and it started to affect our relationship. When I questioned how he had periods she called me a transphobe and a bigot. I couldn't understand how an intelligent teenager looked at the male in front of her and believed he was a girl, let alone had periods.

I don't think she ever did really believe it, but I do think she believed she was championing the underdog and doing the right thing. Also there was no room for her to object, it was like a cult and saying something would have been social suicide.

I don't think this was anything to do with trans. I think it was about a male pupil who discovered this was a way into the girls group(and girls minds) and a way to bully them. My daughter dutifully watched her language and pretty much apologized for existing. The girls would quickly turn on each other on his suggestion that one of them had offended him. And he was offended a lot.

As is typical, he stayed away from the boys and didn't try to convince them he was a girl or ask them personal questions. I bet he loved every minuite of it. I still feel angry now when I think about it.

WhereYouLeftIt · 29/04/2017 14:05

" I find myself constantly comparing trans to being gay. It's something that I can't seem to help."
And that is why the first thing the transactivists did was to attach themselves to the LGB community. Using them as a cloak of respectability - or these days, more like a human shield.

VestalVirgin · 29/04/2017 14:09

And gay people aren't asking for the rights of others. They want their own rights. Their own place. They're taking nothing. Their rights don't clash with the rights of anyone else.

Exactly.

If two men marry each other, that doesn't hurt anyone. It doesn't even matter whether they are actually gay, or just heterosexual men who for some reason want to marry their best friend.

With a male trans who wants access to women's spaces, we are not only expected to believe that his unprovable feelings make him an actual woman (despite his obviously male anatomy) and as unlikely to assault us as a woman - we are also expected to believe that no male would ever lie about "feeling like a woman".

TalkingintheDark · 29/04/2017 14:15

What was the outcome of all that, Rogue? Did something change (just because you're talking about it in the past tense)?

BigDeskBob · 29/04/2017 14:37

RogueBiscuit, I'm not surprised that you are still angry. I heard an episode of the 'listening project' this week where a girl, I think she was 9, was being praised for being nice and kind and putting others before herself. And I do think its something I have to keep an eye on, having both a boy and girl. I want them both to be good people, of course. But I'm conscious that I don't want my daughter to feel she has to sort out everybody else's problems, especially at her own expense.

TalkingintheDark · 29/04/2017 15:16

It's going back up the thread a bit but I just wanted to say how much I agree with venus and Rogue on this point:

It is bullying. I've said it before, it feels like being in an abusive relationship felt. That gaslighting and emotional blackmail

A thousand times this.

TalkingintheDark · 29/04/2017 15:18

On a lighter note... still ROFLing at NotCaryl proclaiming:

"I am a radical feminist" Grin

PhyllisNights · 29/04/2017 15:23

Gallavich & Prawn, thank you for that.

There are people who feel that gay marriage is taking away from their rights, which I can't understand at all.

In my experience, I've found drag queens to be the most offensive to women. Not on a rights issue, and I know it's a performance act, but some of the terminology and the things they come out with is horrific. Some gay men, for whatever reason, can be very misogynistic. It's language like "fish" which means a drag queen has a close resemblance to looking feminine, or 'hunty' (hunny + cunt) which is a term of endearment they use amongst the community.

Datun · 29/04/2017 15:29

I thought fish referred to women's downstairs odour

PhyllisNights · 29/04/2017 15:31

I believe that's where it's taken from. I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly words and terminology that I see them use online.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ashley-clarke/rupals-drag-race_b_4957651.html

This is quite a good read.

Datun · 29/04/2017 15:44

PhyllisNights

Thanks for that. There was a whole thread on here a few months ago analysing drag from a feminist's viewpoint. Not everyone thought the same.

And yes, I believe fish is meant as a slur.

GuardianLions · 29/04/2017 16:37

Ah Phyllis I have to admit that to start off with i thought you were a troll. Now I realise you have been badly gaslighted. Flowers

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 29/04/2017 17:34

Monkey, I did a special trawl and found the sad story of the transman who was raped by a taxi driver and couldn't believe he carried on even when she explained her male gender identity.

I lost all my phone bookmarks after a highly unusual fatal phone event. I baked it. Grin

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/04/2017 19:00

Never mind all this trans trivia - how on earth did you manage to bake your phone? Shock

PhyllisNights · 29/04/2017 20:41

GuardianLions, thank you! I haven't really used forums since I was a teenager, so I've found it quite hard to assimilate to the culture of MN, but I think I'm getting there!

Since using the trans threads on MN, I feel like I've got more of a broader and independent understanding of trans as a whole.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 29/04/2017 21:26

I'm glad you asked, STDGis. I've been wondering whether to start a thread on Chat: "Stupid ways you've wrecked appliances" perhaps? Grin

I was watching a video while cooking. Someone spoke to me, I stopped the video, turned round and, when I looked back, my phone had disappeared. I tried the loo, the living room... No sign. Shrugged. I'm not the tidiest person. I'll find it later.

Then the oven timer went off. I took my quiche out of the oven and there, on the baking tray, was my phone. 15 minutes at Gas 7. Utterly, utterly trashed. Even the SIM. I'd laid it down, and casually popped it in.

DS2 tells me I was extremely lucky the battery, which was all puffed up, didn't explode. Trying to put a positive slant on things, I pointed out that I might have got a new kitchen from the insurance. He replied gravely that I would have gone up with the battery, seeing where I was standing.

TalkingintheDark · 29/04/2017 23:17

Shock Prawn!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/04/2017 23:20

@Prawnofthepatriarchy - you win MN today!