ITV Transformation Street

[RedToothBrush]

On tv tonight.

But here's an article to give you a taste of what its going to be like:www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/transformation-street-itv-transgender-documentary-a3737876.html

Either #3 or # 8
Here I offer the first ten for you to use as you see fit.
1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.
2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.
4th rule of misogyny: Women's opinions are violence against men thus male violence against women is justified.
5th rule of misogyny: WATM! Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.
6th rule of misogyny: Women who go around being female AT men by menstruating and breast feeding babies deserve punishment.
7th rule of misogyny: Women should always be grateful to men for everything.
8th rule of misogyny: Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.
9th rule of misogyny: Men always know the "real reasons" for everything women do and say.
10th rule of misogyny: The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

Snap I was just about to do the same thing!

It's always funny watching trans women attempt to pull this kind of "I as a man approve of the behavior of this set of women, but not that set, and of course as women my approval is important to you" thing on groups of women, attempting to play us off against each other. It's such a stereotypically male thing to do that when the person doing it insists that they're female it's hard not to have a bit of a giggle.

48harv, we have been straight with you and you have been mendacious with us. It is not our behavior that needs review.

As it happens I have never supported any of the masogyny rules you have laid down even in my previous life, I have always given all women the respect they richly deserve, and hold the belief that we must learn to trust each other and support each other, be my guest to turn that around until it suits your agenda, if you wish to continue this line of thought I will be happy to speak to you again tomorrow but for now it’s time for bed, good night LADIES

"I have always given all women the respect they richly deserve"

Until they say something you don't like, then it's a scolding and the naughty chair for them.

Ewwww, harv. Just ewww.

Nobody here bullied you, harv.

Nobody here was aggressive.

Nobody here pulled your hair out by the roots.

I explained to you what happens when a woman who has gone through menopause reads your (scientifically inaccurate and startlingly tone deaf) account of your imagined experiences of menopause. What you wrote made it clear that you do not understand the biological experiences that women have. This is not a value judgement on you. You have your own experiences. But when you gaze at women and perceive us to be the same, because you don’t listen to what our lives actually are, the effect you create is that you believe you are in a position to tell us something about what being a woman is. That's not OK, and further, it's also not OK to try to dictate what my or any woman's reaction to that appropriation ought to be.

Had you come here and said something like “I empathise with women because I feel like some of our life experiences are similar and that make me feel some solidarity”, I would think “fair enough”.

Had you read what I wrote about going through the menopause and years of fighting to get doctors to treat my gynae issues properly and written "gosh, that sounds tough. Sounds like you have had your battles to fight too. I didn't mean we'd gone through the exact same thing, sorry", then I would have also thought "fair enough".

But why you actually did was bowl in here, not make the slightest attempt to engage with the topic at hand, make it all about you and your suffering, type some rubbish about the massive difficulties of taking three months of hormones and a doctor telling you you were going through the menopause, frame the discussion as "aggression" and "bullying" when it didn't go in the direction that you wanted it and slide in some digs about "the fairer sex" in an attempt to create the impression that we are awful and unladlylike and should be ashamed of ourselves.

Here's some inside info on being a lady for you, harv.

Three months of taking hormones and six months of turmoil caused by hormones is nothing. Literally NOTHING to a woman. Many of us go through years of such things. Menarche, menstruation, birth control, pregnancy, birth, post birth, menopause - all of these can and do wreak havoc on women's hormonal profiles. And it is frequently not taken remotely seriously by medicine. So your attempt to evoke a reaction in women by telling us about how difficult it was for you will result in a hollow laugh. Because your clueless privilege tells us so much about you. It's manflu.

I am genuinely sorry that you find it so hard to leave room in the world for women's experience. I can't imagine it's a happy place for you. But I won't be guilted into shutting up about women's lives and experiences no matter how "nice" you are about it.

(Round of applause for Sophocles)

It's just so narcissistic, coming into a forum full of women and expecting us to be an appreciative audience that listens patiently and never complains or god forbid uses (gasp!) sarcasm while our experiences are being erased. And then of course there's the mandatory lecture about how we're not performing femininity properly, unlike those other nice women, they're proper ladies...

Nope, sorry, whatever minimal patience I ever may have had has long since ran out.

I expect that they quite often get that appreciative audience, kittens - while being oblivious to it being a product of female socialisation.

Must be a shock to come to a forum like this where there are women who prefer not to do that. Ouch!

Italian, your posts were very lovely and supportive. I'm not having any kind of dig at you, by the way.

👏👏👏👏👏 Sophocles

Also, I think harv's comments about wombs being transplanted into men are not only highly sinister, but also very indicative of what this whole thing is actually about.

Where are these wombs going to come from, harv?

But we can't point out the impact of gendered socialization, because that would be mean and unladylike. A true lady sits with her legs crossed daintily at the ankles and listens quietly, and makes sure to control any facial expressions that might indicate that she thinks the person talking is indulging in a bit of verbal wanking and knows about as much about what being a woman is like as they do about particle physics.

(Only so long I can keep the twee performative femininity bollocks up for, sorry!)

The transplanted wombs thing is ghoulish. Is it not enough that poor women in some parts of India are already having their kidneys harvested? Do we really have to steal their uteri too?

Gosh, 48 no one has been a bully. Someone pointed a fact. That you did not go through a menaupause. Whatever you did go through may have been horrible but it was not a menopause.

Before you made the bullying accusation you seemed a very reasonable person. A person points out your mistake and you start throwing out accusations instead of continuing in a calm debate, maybe doing a bit of googling to actually see what a menopause entails. But no, you are obviously right and we women are wrong

but as for my mind and my interpretation of how I stand in the community I live in I am female because most of the general public only accept male or female genders

harv, if other genders were accepted more readily would you be happy to call yourself a trans woman rather than female?

I’ve heard a few people say that the issue stems from society’s idea of gender as binary (& I agree) but if gender and sex are not related then why the need for physical change? Is it because it is so difficult to be a man who is kind and nurturing and likes dresses and makeup (or whatever other ‘feminine’ traits) so easier to be yourself while presenting as female?

As a teenager I used to dress in loose trousers and baggy tops because I was so uncomfortable with my body, I think that was mainly because I was treated differently with that body (& because having periods is just shit). Do you think if men and women were treated the same that body issues would be lessened?

Apologies if these questions are too personal, feel free not to reply. I’m really interested in your opinion.

I realize that this is very personal

@48harv

You may not realise it, but your contribution to this thread is almost identical to every other transwoman's contribution. Not all, but most (Curry being an exception).

We are not bullying, barracking women. We are logical, rational, calm and fully convicted in our understanding of what it means to be a woman.

Your initial responses gave you a soft landing here.

I do not ever hand out creds for 'passing', but your discussion of feminism and women around the world did have me reaching
in my pocket for creds.

It's unusual for a transwoman to have any genuine affinity with women. And it was noted.

Hence your pleased reaction.

But, what generally happens, is that this kind of civilised discourse will fall apart partly because you're not a woman and don't experience what women go through. But secondly, and this always happens, transwomen will automatically bring a socialisation to the conversation, that they don't realise they have.

It's not enough that you, and we, know you didn't go through menopause, because you have no 'meno' to pause.

You have to argue the toss.

Then get offended because we don't fall in line. And start with the snarky comments and incredibly stereotypical guilt tripping.

It's so predictable. We've seen it dozens of times.

I, and many women here, have firsthand experience of menopause.

It can last 10 or more years. My aunt is 73 and still gets hot flushes, 20 years later.

My gynaecologist thought I might have to have a hysterectomy because my womb lining had pinged itself to 4 times its natural size.

Menopause is not something that men go through because they're taking artificial hormones.

To call it such just sounds a little creepy, if I'm honest. And insulting, to women for whom the menopause can mean literally decades of misery and health issues.

Don't do it.

As a previous poster instead, you would have done far better to say no, you're right, I'm sorry it's not called that. Because that shows an actual affinity with women.

Rather than an imagined one that relies on our forced collaboration.

"but as for my mind and my interpretation of how I stand in the community I live in I am female because most of the general public only accept male or female genders"

This is interesting in that it suggests a lack of clarity about the fact that how a person sees themselves and how others see them can be very different. Many women are too polite to tell trans women that we know they're not women in real life. It can feel unkind, and a lot of female socialization focuses on being kind and nurturing. Still, most people in this day and age are aware of the concept of trans people and therefore have a mental framework into which they can slot a person who appears male but who's dressed in a stereotypically feminine way. The fact that a person sees themselves as a woman and wear's women's clothes doesn't necessarily mean that their community thinks they were born female.

Late where I am so I'm probably not expressing this well, it just struck me that harv is assuming that subjective feelings about self = how others see harv, which is odd, especially given that with all the focus on trans in the news over the last few years you'd have to have been living under a rock not to be aware that there are some male people who want to be seen as women and who attempt to present themselves as such. Not believing in non-binary genders doesn't mean that the only options in a person's head are female person with typically feminine presentation and male person with typically male presentation.

Not everyone is as hung up on gender roles as trans people are, is what I'm getting at.

I’ve been on synthetic hormones for more than half my life, they make me depressed, bloat my stomach, I have scarring on my arm and muscle wastage, I grew an ovarian cyst, I had someone PUT A PIECE OF METAL IN MY CERVIX WHILE I WAS AWAKE, my breasts are always swollen and tender and I get bowel cramps. (All of these symptoms are totally ‘normal’ btw)

I hear you Harv synthetic hormones are awful and on that level you have my upmost sympathy and it’s a shared similar experience.
Let’s go from there rather than claiming what you had was the menopause.

Another thing that's come up before in the context of trans women claiming they have periods is that synthetic hormones can indeed have nasty side effects and if the person taking the hormones writes their symptoms off as some sort of rather vague sexist idea of "women's troubles" then the symptoms are not getting the medical attention that they probably should be. With the ones who claim they get periods, if you're experiencing sudden sharp abdominal pain and it keeps happening then maybe go see a doctor, yeah? Rather than going "oh I'm becoming a true woman now and this is my period" (causing cramping in the internal organs that you do not in fact have).

I knew this was going to happen as soon as Harv popped up on the thread. It always plays out the exact same way:
The whole thread was going to become all about them sharing their "unique" experiences that somehow makes them female/a woman. And because Harv was doing so from a sympathetic and understanding angle, the female socialised women here would nicely give Harv the benefit of the doubt.
And so long as the women here danced around the awkward truth (that Harv is no more a female than Eddie Izzard,) and were sympathetic and agreeable to Harv's centring of themself, Harv would remain all sweetness and light...while gradually pushing boundaries, (calling themself female, the comment about the corset, the menopause) to see how far they could get.
And as soon as women said, firmly but nicely "now come on, you know, that's not accurate," Harv predictably turned on the women they were just greasing up against for validation, and let loose with a storm of sexist anger.
It's hugely unfair to all the women on this thread who went above and beyond in their efforts to balance tact and truthfulness.
And it's so typical

Tedious, isn't it? The arguing back is more for the benefit of lurkers than for Harv, who's clearly beyond any hope of reasoning with.

Quite so, scrumple. It doesn't matter how politely I phrased it, and how neutrally I put harv right on their facts. I disagreed, therefore I am hateful.

I'm actually laughing at the idea of three months of hormone hell. I'd have given my left ovary if the grand total of my problems with female biology had lasted three months.

No, wait! I DID give my left ovary! And the uterus. And the cervix. And my entire peritoneum. Oh, my sides such larks. Such jolly japes for all girls together.

Not three months. Three DECADES. So don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

I don't know if this one pissed me off more or less than the one earlier in the month saying that GnRH treatments for endometriosis cause side effects in women because they clash with the ladybrain, but that's is why they're effective for transwomen because they make the ladybrain align properly. It's a close call.

"saying that GnRH treatments for endometriosis cause side effects in women because they clash with the ladybrain"

So that's why there's a class action lawsuit against the makers of Lupron, because it made women's ladybrains all confused?

That's about the score of it, kittens. Bone thinning and irreversible infertility are apparently caused by the interplay between one's internal sense of gender identity and a long-lasting injectible medication. Completely plausible.

@48harv how are you doing?

Lots and lots of comments directed at only you. The trouble for me is I do understand where many of the posters were coming from (and agree) but I also feel the way you were inundated with posts directed at you was unfair and to me did feel like bullying behaviour.

I'll now get shouted down!

In fairness 48harv is posting on a thread about a tv programme about a clinic providing services to trans women and some services to trans men. So 48harv is well placed to answer things on this thread and was not barging into a female only space making statements about females.

Yes biological terns were mentioned, yes I agree calling something ths is not menopause as menopause is frustrating but I do feel the replies were over the top.

48harv, you said you liked honesty! I guess there are a lot of views on all this topic and we don't all agree with each other! But I value your input and hope this has not put you off I am still reading comments and will come back with a few questions on a minute

Our poor delicate lady brains, so easily confused
God, that poor theory doesn't even hope to make sense though, does it?

I must say, despite Harv's decline, it was a pleasure to come back and read through the rest of the thread, just to see you all being most unladylike
Although really I'm not sure how being honest and firm, with a dash of incisive anger, is all that unladylike, by any reasonable standards.