The "Transwomen are women" thing

[Battleax]

Bear with me for a moment.

( @Ekphrasis said something interesting on another thread about what closes ears to what we're saying and I've been thinking about closed ears more generally.)

Would it work better to sidestep the whole "Transwomen are women" mantra instead of taking it on?

Just talk about "natal women" having different needs to "transwomen". Every single time.

Because I think "no they're not" stops the brainwashed from listening.

I do see your point.

But I usually rephrase it like this: Trans-Identifying Males are not women.

It makes it clearer for other people if you deny them the label 'woman', which they do not merit.

I just wonder whether 'conceding' that there are two types of women (I know, I know) but the two types are not the same and have different needs might 'work' better?

It's insane out there.

I am in favour of sticking to the facts.

TIMs are not women. I think that if we concede that they are, then it is a slippery slope. Give an inch, then it is another inch, and gradually they take a mile.

It can be worth questioning it though. It's empty rhetoric and meaningless.
Ask what it means.
Or just ignore and move onto the issues.

Ask what it means

They never answer.

Nope. Because then every time I say woman I have to qualify it. When there is a perfectly good single word to use.
And in terms of feminism allowing men to decide how to talk about woman is just helping to prop up the structure of patriarchy.

No way. Over my dead body.

Nope. Because then every time I say woman I have to qualify it. When there is a perfectly good single word to use.

Yes true. Same as the awful "cis".

So how do win?

DS came home from uni for 24 hrs yesterday. He's very involved in student politics at a very political uni and (although he is stealthily gender critical himself) he was relating various meetings and events and my heart just sank at Maoist grip this all has. He thinks it's unwinnable.

There's got to be a way around it.

A certain demographic hear "TIMs are not women", think "bigot" and stop listening.

To them it's the same as hearing "Enoch was right."

I think it's the impact on children that is hard to argue against. The harm being done, the mutilation of bodies before children are 'Gillick' / Fraser competent, the long term impact on their fertility. Trouble is, this doesn't translate into catchy slogans.

Nope. Transwomen are transwomen and women are women. They are perfectly good words that describe the groups in question.

Need to stop using transwomen too. Language is important and transwomen implies transwomen are a valid subset of women.

TIMs is clearer and also more inclusive of males who identify as trans but not as women.

There are indeed two groups.

There are women and girls, approximately 50% of the population who are still fighting for basic rights in much of the world.
Transwomen, a tiny fraction of the population who want to remove those rights in favour of their own.

He thinks it's unwinnable.

People in their teens and early twenties are a minority within the overall population. Putting it bluntly, there are more of us than there are of them.

I think the fact that almost everyone in that demographic is on social media gives a misleading sense of public opinion, and that's what's led to the political class, companies etc taking a pro-TRA position. As more and more adults start to push back they may change course. To a certain extent we're already seeing that.

Target in the US clearly didn't expect declaring that their toilets and changing rooms would operate on self identification would cause any problems, probably because they were taking the temperature from social media. Their share price has dropped dramatically and estimates are that they've lost millions in sales. The majority of the public doesn't want this.

Ha. I thought it was my travels around SM that were depressing me, but hearing SM-sceptical DS get maudlin about it finished me off. But he is in a very politicised RL environment, as I say. Maybe they'll all graduate and snap out of the madness

I mean, I thought some bloody stupid things when I was at uni too. I had bright orange drainpipe jeans in the 80s. Hopefully they'll eventually develop some common sense, but in the meantime we may be in for a very painful period where studenty types make a lot of demands and the grownups have to tell them that no, the things they're asking for aren't going to happen.

I wish the grown ups would get a move on.

I take it Justine Greening isn't one of the grown ups?

See? I'm just despondent today.

All men understand that transwomen are men. All of them know this. It's up to men to correct this. I'm fed up with doing work that men should be doing.

If I'm a bigot and a terf for saying that transwomen are not women, then so be it. I'm speaking the truth and men know this.

People in their teens and early twenties are a minority within the overall population.

This might be the case but unfortunately the powers that be are listening to them, not reason. I just emailed my MP (young, middle class, trendy) and got the answer transwomen are women, no discussion. It's some kind of unholy alliance between older vested interests and young stupid idealism.

Fucking depressing. I am in no way politically apathetic, I'm a floating centre-left sort of person, voted for Labour, Lib Dem, and Greens in my time, joined Labour and Greens in the past. But if there was a general election tomorrow I wouldn't be voting.

If it's any help then my son, 16, in sixth form has said that the only sensible solution to it is separate facilities for trans people. That way women get to have their safe spaces - he's adamant that women should have spaces that protect them from violent men.

Trust me, I get it. Feel like banging my head against the wall some days, but then I remember that if I kill too many brain cells their idiotic arguments might start sounding reasonable to me.

(Snark is one coping mechanism.)

This might be the case but unfortunately the powers that be are listening to them, not reason. I just emailed my MP (young, middle class, trendy) and got the answer transwomen are women, no discussion. It's some kind of unholy alliance between older vested interests and young stupid idealism.

This is it.

And we've already had a few cohorts of bright young things setting policy very early in their careers (DS is a PPEist at the place where loads of PPEists go into politics).

If it's any help then my son, 16, in sixth form has said that the only sensible solution to it is separate facilities for trans people.

Oh yes there's loads of sense from young people. Then they get to uni and they daren't say A WORD.

I'm sorry, no amount of surgery and medication can change a man into a woman. They are TIMs not trans-women or self-identifying women or any other type of woman.

Why should we have to pretend? Pretending makes them think they have won.

And another thing, I'm sick and bloody tired of being labelled a bigot, transphobe, etc for not recognising TIMs as female. They are males who think they are women, that does not automatically make them so because they say so. Bollocks.

Can the government not just take this bill by the horns and tell them to suck it the f**k up, already? Instead of a GRC, intensive MH support is needed here. It is ludicrous that this little charade is still being played to spare the feelings of a few, while ruining the identity of half the population.

(Snark is one coping mechanism.)

Yep back to snark it is

No good comes from thinking too much.