“Transwomen are women”

[BertrandRussell]

There are plenty of angsty threads on this topic, but please can this one not be.

Please can someone who thinks that transwomen are actually, literally women tell me the reasoning behind the thought? If you have come to this conclusion because you have read scientific research, please could you link to it.

I will only respond with “Thank you” or to give you clarification if you ask for it,and please will anyone else interested do the same.

FarFrom

Say ther was a hormonal basis to gender dysphoria. That would mean that a person would feel feminine (or effeminate). Not female.

'Feeling' female relies on biology.

And, humans are a mix of hormones. Some menopausal women, produce a rush of testosterone for instance. Which can increase the libido and give them more temporary energy. It doesn't make them feel male. It makes them feel horny and energetic.

Oops, posted too soon. The only MtF I know is 5'6", very effeminate and was frequently mistaken for a girl anyway. They're asexual (so nobody sees their genitals!), they use a name that could be either, and dress in an androgynous way, so are possibly closer to non-binary.

I think being a woman is also subjective and personal and isn't just based on the quality of your vagina which you also clearly don't think.

The “quality of your vagina”? WTAF is that supposed to mean?

But still, they prefer the way they are treated now (when perhaps people aren't sure) to how people reacted to him in the past.

What do you mean by treated as the other sex are? I doubt trans women want a 12 percent pay cut, to be chided by their mothers about leaving it too long to have babies, or to be expected to carry the bulk of the mental load.

But basically it seems to boil down to whether biology (as we currently know it) is seen as the be all or end all or not.

Well yes Farfrom. Biology is the be all and end all of sex. Of what it is to be of the biological class female or the biological class male.

www.google.fr/amp/s/www.collinsdictionary.com/amp/english/biological

Biological
1. adjective [usually ADJECTIVE noun]
Biological is used to describe processes and states that occur in the bodies and cells of living things.

Sex
1.countable noun
The two sexes are the two groups, male and female, into which people and animals are divided according to the function they have in producing young.

For what it's worth, yes. I think national identity is subjective and personal and isn't based on melanin, which you clearly don't think

To clear I do think national identity is subjective and personal but it has nothing to do with skin colour. As I said I live in Scotland but have no desire to call myself Scottish.

I think being a woman is also subjective and personal and isn't just based on the quality of your vagina which you also clearly don't think

Biology is not personal and subjective. If women and man lose their biological meaning you are left with no words to describe the 50% of the population whose bodies carry ova and have or might have the potential to become pregnant and bear children or the 50% of the population who have or might the potential to fertilise those ova.

Have a good Hogmanay and New Year.

vwlphb Maybe treated how the think the other sex is treated?

The people I know are students, living away from home, many of those things don't apply. They introduce themselves in a certain way and get treated differently to how they'd be treated as their original selves.

Presenting in a different way has made people treat them in a different way - QED as far as they're concerned.

We know that they're treated differently because they're trans and people are being polite and they're making an effort to fit in with the group they're with, not because they are actually the opposite sex.

I really like the 'sense of God' analogy. I actually am religious but I am unable to articulate the feeling that God just does exist, much like nobody has ever been able to explain their gender identity to me. Faith and gender identity are both deeply personal and totally subjective. Neither, however, are a good way of organising a society.

I mentioned the god/faith analogy at least 18 months ago.

Farfrom I’m confused because you seem to be suggesting that there is a scientific basis to being trans by mentioning hormones, autism and finger length but also saying that there’s no relevance with finger length. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. I think it’s something like “maybe it’s about science but if not then compassion something”. It’s the sort of vague non-answer that avoids addressing TheUterati ‘s question.

farfrom, I think it's possible, maybe even likely that there is a biological basis for why people struggle with their feelings around their sex. We may come to understand that process in time.

But it would only ever be a biological basis that leads to an internal, subjective set of thought processes. It doesn't change their sex, it doesn't make their brain "female" or "male", and it's far from a given that the best way to address those thought processes is to cater to the faulty thinking. There's a biological basis to panic attacks and schizophrenia, but it's not helpful to the person panicking to agree that they are having a heart attack, or that people are spying on the person with schizophrenia.

I should note that people often object to the idea that gender non conformity can be compared to psychiatric illness- there's often a strong sense that mental ill health is something to be ashamed of, which it isn't.

What does it mean to "be a woman in society?" Judith Butler wrote a very important paper on gender as something that's performed in society rather than something inherent based on genetics:

www.jstor.org/stable/3207893?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

You can say that being a woman is """just about biology""", but at the end of the day being a woman also means wearing certain clothes, acting certain ways, and dealing with discrimination.

The performativity of drag becomes problematic for the homophobic dominant ideology, where, if you consider a drag queen or trans woman to be a woman, that woman will result in a reexamination of the pedagogical terms – by portraying the excess of the capitalist production and consumption it takes to act and look like a woman, the queen will outdo the women in this sense, and in the process will confuse and seduce an audience, whose gaze is structured to a degree through this hegemony. Trans women and drag queens challenge the fantasy upon which the spectacle of the ideal female is predicated, which rests on the criteria for desirability under the male gaze, as femininity and sexuality are inextricably linked by the mediated spectacle of the female body. The structure of this gaze relies on the female body on display, and the manner in which the reifying definition of sexuality through consumerism links traditional gender stereotypes with capitalism so as to sustain both.

You can say that being a woman is """just about biology""", but at the end of the day being a woman also means wearing certain clothes, acting certain ways, and dealing with discrimination

But we wear certain clothes because of our bodies, we act certain ways because of our bodies and we are discriminated against because of our bodies. It's not a womanly choice to wear bras, use toilets to change tampons or take a paycut because we might one day have children.

What the hell does autism have to do with this?
Before you drag up the tired old crap about autism being the product of the extreme male brain, you should probably realise that this is by no means a widely accepted or well evidenced theory. I have a lot of time for Simon baron Cohen - his work on early diagnostic screening was instrumental in securing prompt diagnosis for my ds - but he is not immune to the lure of the crappy sound bite enabling him to sell more books to the credulous public.

If every woman in the country identified as a man tomorrow based on inner feeling, how many rapes would it stop?

How long would it take, in this country of men, for biological sex to reassert itself as an important discriminator?

noblegiraffe

Yup

"being a woman also means wearing certain clothes"

No, it doesn't.

And how does the extreme male brain theory (which is popular but by no means settled science) account for high numbers of autistic men feeling they are women?

(I hope everybody had a lovely Christmas.)

These are my thoughts:

• Women are adult human females (of the reproductive class with the potential to produce large gametes). That's it. Fin.

• As a well known Twitter user says, there is no objective definition of woman pursuant to which transwomen are women. That's also it. Fin.

• That said, we live in harshly patriarchal world and I accept that a very rare number of men will have catastrophic levels of body dysphoria which have required medical and surgical interventions to treat. I am happy to accept that these men live as women in a psychosocial sense and it is reasonable to create the legal fiction of a GRC in these very rare circumstances.

• Expressing feminine is not transition.

• No person born male - GRC holder or otherwise - should speak for women, be elected to women's representation posts, be eligible for sex-based affirmative action programmes.

• Single sex exemptions should be in place and should exclude GRC holders because women are vulnerable in many situations and the needs of vulnerable women trump the rights of males with a GRC to apply for particular jobs.

How long would it take, in this country of men, for biological sex to reassert itself as an important discriminator?

About as long as it took Pink News to name its people of the year?!

hmm, far you think I don't seem to have compassion?
I actually don't feel compassion for anyone who tells me what is means to be female no, especially if that person is male.

A male will never know what it is like to be female, they will never , ever know, no matter how many pretty frocks they wear and how many drugs they take.

They do have lots of fantasies and fantastical ideas, but they are just guesses and wishes, they are not and will never be based in a woman's reality.

I have absolutely no problem with a male wanting to be like a female, however that manifests for him, but he should not call himself female nor tell real females how they should be and how they should view themselves through his male eyes.

KnittingNancy2017 very good point about most trans people in the currwnt wave being studwnts and preferring the way they are treated (special trans person with a terrible dysphoria eliciting lots of sympathy for being unlucky enough to have been8

vs effeminate presenting boy, bullied at school for being different to the other boys/being gay). Also worth noting that most women are treated better as students than for mostbof the rest of their lives (discrimination, harrasment, expected to do all the drudge work, at home with the kids while the bloke does what he wants). I wonder if there will be a queue of trans women queuing to change back to men once they realise this and the discrimination really kicks in?

Also worth noting that most women are treated better as students than for most of the rest of their lives

YY Flomper. My female friends and I had no understanding of this at the time.