Why DO people 'believe' transwomen are women?

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

Actually why?

Because the act of 'believing' without evidence or logic is cult like ideology to me.

The repetition of 'transwomen ARE women' on twitter, facebook etc is like a mantra of a cult. Like repeating the rosary or something, and the more that it repeated, the more people double down in their thinking.

I really feel bewildered half the time now.

It feels like a cult

Like a cult or religion, I guess people are free to believe what they want.

But we are not forced to believe other people's religious beliefs; why are we being forced to believe that 'transwomen are women' and 'transmen are men', when there is no objective, material truth in that statement

It's the new Reformation, but logical thinkers, not Catholics, are being hounded out and targetted.

It's mind blowing

I think the best account of the "wrong body" view was from a transwoman who posted on here (I paraphrase because it was a while back). Her version was something along the lines of "Look, when I use it, I don't mean it literally. It's a metaphor, the best thing I can come up with to explain my dysphoria, this overwhelming sense of something being wrong, to someone who doesn't share that dysphoria." Unfortunately, it's now been appropriated by trans activists who now insist that language about being born in the wrong body is to be taken absolutely literally, at face value, and given a pseudo scientific underpinning in terms of (highly dubious and cherry picked versions of) neuroscience.

According to a historian friend of mine, a similar thing happened in the history of religion. If you'd asked someone in the Middle Ages, they'd have said large parts of the bible were meant to be understood metaphorically or allegorically. You can actually date when literalism crept into late 19th century American interpretations of the bible, as a direct response to the success and perceived threat of the scientific world view.

To add to what Datun said, there is a politics of identity here that potentially oppresses women and we see it in other regards.

For example the campaign for equal postnatal leave for mothers and fathers. They did this with economists recently and found the men roared ahead in career terms as they had an extra window for publication. Women economists did not, because, and this is an important because, they have to recover biologically from giving birth in addition to any parenting duties.

We've collectively played down the need for this because we argue that women are equal to men etc. So we try to look as equal as possible, and make a thing about equal parenting as a means of being inclusive. But ignoring biological difference means we allow in discrimination through the back door. Which is what is happening here.

It has been such a relief to find on these MN boards other people saying what I think (but feel I can't say on eg Twitter).
I am utterly unbothered by transpeople doing their thing - until they start trying to impose their worldview on the rest of us. All this "you must say pregnant people not pregnant women unless that offends transwomen" bollocks is infuriating. Why don't they understand that most women will be friendly and sympathetic if they acknowledge that being born a woman has its challenges too and that many women have lifelong fears of Male violence which mean we're not happy to share spaces where we're physically vulnerable with men? Why won't they understand that children go through phases of thinking they are a cat/unicorn/astronaut & we don't make life changing decisions based on these fads so we shouldn't rush to cater to what could be a temporary whim for a girl who thinks she should be a boy? I don't get how we're apparently the unreasonable ones here.

"But ignoring biological difference means we allow in discrimination through the back door. Which is what is happening here."

• this is so true, and the harm that has come from ruling out biology that gender is now trivialised to opt in or out at will.

Very interesting posts. I think it's either the thin end of the wedge or a passing trend that will eventually go nowhere. Hopefully the latter. And I think that people are worried about being seen to be uncool with it all instead of being brave enough to openly oppose it. It feels like a powerful lobby out there.

They can just fuck off with the pregnant people thing. That's just bonkers. If you are bearing children, you're female, whether you like it or not.

It's a fashion but I think if we are clever, we can make progress here in terms of rights for young girls sitting exams at difficult points in the menstrual cycle, rights for women to access gynaecologists more rapidly, rights for women experiencing menopause to have suitable environmental conditions to work in, that kind of thing.

I do think there are transgender people are very genuine- whether it be due to biological or psychological conditions- the feelings they have are real, but it should remain that, a medical condition- with professional involvement, not reduced to a tick box form.
I think the genuine cases have been hijacked by a different type of movement though and I don't think has anything to do with the welfare of transgender people. It obviously has much wider implications.
I feel it should remain a medical condition, and self declaration ruled out.

And trying to understand something from a different perspective is not gas lighting if you were referring to me..... it's a necessity if you want a balanced view.

I think we should call men who identify as women 'transmen' as this is what they are - transgender men. In fact I assumed that's what trans men meant till I started reading these threads. I was musing the other day that in 1000s of years if you dug some one up who'd m>f there would be no evidence of that at all, just an xy male skeleton. True fact. What would an autopsy say if they had to post mortem a person who'd had a 'sex change' (I'm going to start ' ' ing too), would they know?

The other weird thing is the insistence that Trans are the most victimised and oppressed group out of everybody ever.

I actually think, the next time I'm challenged on this, I might refer them to the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. Or would that be too much & really offensive? Genuine question.

People are scared about offending and there is huge wave of good movement towards equality in race, gender, sexuality etc. But in the midst of that, less certain aspects of humanity get dragged into the mix...
A man who dresses as a woman, or a woman who identifies as a man are examples of where society hasn't quite come to terms with things. We still haven't fully come to terms with race, gender, sexuality et al, but we do seem to have settled on acceptance and to massively reduce former prejudices. With that in mind, if someone identifies as a particular gender, we seem reluctant to challenge it, as 'acceptance' is the order of the day.

Until we discover any hidden gender identifiers, science has to abuse by what it can currently prove, and that means XX or XY.

You could notionally define gender as something more ethereal than biological alone... and argue that science can only detect the biological, not the soul or emotive being. But if you go down that route, an apple might actually be an orange if only we could better measure the immeasurable.

Maybe because when people think of transwomen, they think of a person who was formerly a man, but has now had their bits chopped off (or at least in the process of) and wears womens clothing and identifies as a woman. Imo, if they choose to get their penis removed then they free to call themselves women, come and join the club. If however they want to keep their penis, then they are and always will be a man afaic.

Why DO people 'believe' transwomen are women?

Because they have replaced knowledge of biology with magical thinking.

People like a cause now more than ever thanks to social media
No doubt it's fashionable
I am in a FAB group for a parents of children with a specific disorder. A parent said their child had also come out as trans. I warned them to be careful especially of charities such as mermaids
I was jumped on by one woman so I had a look at her FB page
She had been part of Charlie's Army too
Hard of thinking and likes a cause

Women have been pretty oppressed.

As Hillary said in her speech, 'Women's rights are human rights':

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or
drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are
born girls. '

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the
slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline,
set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are
deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in
their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape
as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death
worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected
to in their own homes.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the
painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to
plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have
abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is
that human rights are women's rights.... And women's rights are human
rights.

Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely.
And the right to be heard.

(Full speech here: www.un.org/esa/gopher-data/conf/fwcw/conf/gov/950905175653.txt)

(Being given a hard time because you want to adopt a female-type lifestyle on your own terms doesn't really compare for me).

The guy on twitter who was lecturing women on this and then had to painfully backtrack once he realised that he might have to consider transwomen as sexual partners sums the whole thing up really.

Anybody got the link?

Apologies - haven't rtft in one chunk so this is just addressing the OP

I remember once sitting at a train station and a bloke who had either had a fight or been badly beaten up was talking to a young female friend he happened to bump into there.

I was horrified and found it hard not to stare - his face was covered in scratches and grazes, several teeth missing, blood on his shirt, bruising and swelling around his eyes. The girl was looking blankly back at him, and I kept overhearing him say "Do I look alright? I feel bad man - do I look alright?" and she would say "yeah you look fine" in a monotone way.

I feel the 'trans women are real women' is a bit like that young man and woman. TIMs know they aren't women, but can't face it, the enablers are like that young woman, who daren't mention it. The reality just seems too horrific to admit.

I think that is why the emotions run so high.

Gender critical people who point it out just seem like extremely unwelcome strangers sticking their noses in - when they NEED this charade just to keep it together.

"Being given a hard time because you want to adopt a female-type lifestyle on your own terms doesn't really compare for me"

I agree, boffin.

Found this paper, it deals with disorders of sex development but some parts are quite interesting and applicable. Also interesting how intersex people do not desire to bring about changes such as spectrum of gender that some transactivists do because of the harm it will cause.

"Recognising sex as a spectrum will result in chaos. For example, women upliftment programs will face serious setback because of the overlapping definition of females among various shades of sexes. Disrupting the smooth social order of the majority is as equally unethical as neglecting the needs of DSD individuals"

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5593477/

As a relative newbie to this - i feel that what is needed is an accessible viral campaign of sorts to bring the message home to the many women that are not aware of what women could be facing if these changes to the gra that have been proposed go ahead - at the moment at lot of what is spoken about in feminist social media can on face of it appear too manhating / anti trans /rad fem or tied up in gender politics rhetoric which to be honest has my brain in knots. I see that more prominent women and transwomen are speaking out at the madness of self iding but how can we help them garner more public support so they are not so easily hounded out of their jobs by accusations of transphobia?

Here’s one of those demanding ones. Why isn’t a private stall good enough? Nova has since been knocked back, thankfully.
Hooray for Illinois (though, disturbingly, Trump is partly responsible

‘The group D211 Parents for Privacy, which is suing the district and federal government in federal court, has opposed locker room access based on gender identity.
‘“We support providing accommodations to students who request one, but the locker room of the opposite sex is not a reasonable accommodation, nor is it compassionate to their fellow classmates to demand this,” said group spokeswoman Vicki Wilson.’

www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-met-transgender-locker-room-teen-20171201-story.html

www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-met-transgender-student-lawsuit-palatine-20180125-story.html

Why isn’t a private stall good enough?
Because if paramedics are called to a woman having a late miscarriage the door will be open.
Because a Muslim woman cant adjust her hijab in one unless it has a mirror.
Because men dont want to see women wash their bloody hands and mooncup in a communal sink.

Because what men think women do in a bathroom - preen in a mirror - is their fantasy, not reality. We want privacy.

This blog is a useful one to defend against the “tw are w” argument.

Miranda Yardley gets a nod

“My purpose is NOT to suggest that all trans people are violent criminals, but the ones listed here certainly are.”
“I do not hate transpeople, but I do want them to look at actual information and admit that transwomen are perpetrators of significant crimes as well as victims.”

genderlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/transwomen-perpetrators-of-violent-and.html?m=1