Can you all just lay off trans people

[cjferg]

There is a difference between sex and gender. Some people's align, other people's don't. Some people are biologically female, and their gender doesn't match that and vies versa. Some people don't have a gender. Why do you care so much?

One of my best friends in school was biologically a female. When he 'came out' to me as trans and explained how he had never felt comfortable in his body all I thought (and anyone who knew him) was that I wasn't surprised and that it made a lot of sense and we all got on with our lives. This was about age 17 and he said he had known this since he was a kid (not saying that any kid who says they want to should be able to willy nilly block their hormones, etc, btw)
It wasn't just about 'presenting as a male'. He was actually a male in a female body.
Yes, when he started presenting as male he felt a lot better. I remember he didn't want to go to our prom because of all the dressing up, etc. until we suggested he wear a tux, and it was amazing to see him so comfortable.
But still he hated having tits and having to wear a binder (can be done safely if you get a proper binder and don't just use bandages or w/e so don't even start)
It wasn't enough to just stuff the front of the trousers.
I repeat, he was a man trapped in a woman's body. Not just a cross dressing woman, not just in an experimental phase.

I have another friend who is biologically a female but they don't have a gender. They are known as 'they' not 'he'or 'she' and knowing them you would in no way think that they are either male or female, again not just about looking a certain way.

I also see a lot of people on here ranting about trans people and they literally only care about transwomen. Genuinely, what has happend to you that you feel so threatened at the thought of someone with a penis being the same gender as you?

Stop ranting about how men are going to use it as an excuse to perv on your kid in a changing room. I'd bet quite a lot that more women will perv on your kid in a changing room than men pretending to be trans will.

Gender is evolving all the time there are no definitive rules to being a man or a woman.

For every thing that you think being a woman is, there will be a woman who disagrees with you.
You say that being a woman means having a uterus - does that make people who've had theirs removed for medical reasons not women?

If being a woman means the ability to have babies then does that mean infertile women aren't women?

If you think being a man is the ability to grow facial hair does that mean that men who can't aren't men?

I read about a woman who had poly cystic ovaries and had a luxurious, thick beard and moustache as a result. Does that mean she is a man or less of a woman? Or should she have continued to try and shave and wax it off and be ashamed of it rather than accept herself the way she was and rock the beard?

Seriously, we've come a long way from being a woman meaning you're your husband's property and having to squirt out babies and clean your whole life. Why are you so determined to go backwards?

Stop using the teeny possibility of a man pretending to be trans to invade women's spaces as a vehicle for your hatred and open your mind enough to at least try and understand the issue, because it might be your kid. It might be your dad. It might be your bff 4eva. If that were the case would you ostracise them from your life and declare them a fraud, or have a little empathy and try and support them through something potentially life changing.

drops mic

Thanks for your second post OP.

It is very complicated!

Can anyone link me to the source of that anti-women “we’ve already won” post?

I'll be damned if a bunch of perverted, mentally ill men get to say what "woman" means.

Me too. I'll be damned.

What if they were women in men's bodies; would they get a say then? Can you prove that they're not?

Yes. Woman means adult human female. People with male bodies who believe themselves to women are not adult human females. So they are not women.

To claim otherwise is an extraordinary claim so I look forward to your extraordinary evidence that also takes account of all the people with anorexia who believe they are fat, all the people with BIID who believe they have too many limbs, Rachel Dolezal and rather a lot of Napoleons and Jesuses.

First off, trans people on the whole are a tiny percentage of the population. 0.1% overall in the UK

Andyet they want something that will disadvantage half the population. Why is their voice so loud?

I suggest that if it's science you want you might start by watching David Eagleman's series on the brain rather than reaching for dusty old Descartes.

It's not on the iPlayer any more, but there's some info here -

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yjrdp

a position that wouldn't be acceptable to the transactivists anyway

I know my position is unacceptable to transactivist. I'm debating for my position though.

Why do you dismiss the lived experiences of lesbians so easily while paying massive attention to the inexpressible womanly feelings in some men's heads?

I can see how my "back to the fundamentals" approach could be interpreted as dismissive of the reality, I absolutely accept that, but I do not disregard their experiences; and I'm not taking my stance on the back of empathy for a minority. I'm taking it because I think it's valid, and because I think it's right.

I will of course read that thread, because that is a fair and welcome suggestion for his I can expand my perspective on the whole issue. But any position does need people to take a blinkered look at things from time to time - to "play the intellectual game" - because you have to base your arguments on sound principles, not just be swayed by the changing tides. And also, perhaps more importantly, because when I started reading these threads I saw an argument presenting itself really very heavily on the intellectual basis that "transwomen are men, gender is external, these are all facts, let's take it from there!" - and I believe it's perfectly valid to unpick that.

Rat yes thank you. I have read extensively about Descartes. He died in 1650!!

'I think therefore I am' is all very interesting as far as the study of the history of psychology. But we know better now. Your mind is your brain. There is no evidence that you have a mind (or soul) separate to your physical body. When your body dies, that's the end of your mind. You cannot separate the two.

And if knew something about yourself FOR SURE that noone could adequately disprove (but that eaually you yourself could not prove) would you be happy with treatment over acceptance?

I accept there people with gender dysphoria. I don't accept that they are the opposite sex, in any way, shape or form.

And it's so just not some knob on Twitter.

Seriously, you have just revealed that you are uninformed about this.

If you look at the thread on here about the Scottish consultation, you see a doctor who has been compaigning about this. She directly asked Stonewall - the biggest organisation in the country for homosexual rights, to confirm that homosexuality meant same sex attraction. They refused.

Michfest, a woman (largely lesbian) only festival that has been running annually for 40 years, was shutdown by Transactivists for being transphobic. Despite transsexuals having been traditionally welcomed.

Two new festivals that sprung up in secret, have also been targeted.

Vancouver women's library was vandalised and given a list, by TRAs, of every single book ever written by women to be removed.

Salford working-class women's Resource, was targeted in the same way.

A vegan restaurant run by lesbians was targeted to put it out of business.

Every single lesbian bar, restaurant and public meeting place is overrun by men claiming to be lesbians.

The Reddit lesbian threads have been shut down, and reopened numerous times. Every single time lesbians open a new sub Reddit, it gets colonised.

They are relentlessly persecuted.

Magdelen Berns was thrown out of her own LGBT Society for saying she wouldn't sleep with a man with a penis, since she is a lesbian.

A mother posted here saying her child has been vilified and abused across social media, for saying that as a newly out teenage lesbian, she will only sleep with women, biological women.

People meet and connect on social media. That's where it is done. There is nowhere, for lesbians to go, publicly, where they are not persecuted. Both on social media and in real life.

The fact that you don't do social media, is giving you an unrealistic perception of what's going on.

Ugh, God forbid I mention a 17th century philosopher because I think it's something people might actually have heard of.

Science assumes a material position because science is concerned with primarily investigating the material. There are of course areas of science precisely concerned with investigating this very problem - Larry has helpfully linked - so quite evidently the book has not been closed. It is far, far from closed. But if anyone here thinks they have more authority than the scientists who continue to "waste their time" studying this then they are welcome to spell out why.

"transwomen are men, gender is external, these are all facts, let's take it from there!"

All of that is true, there is nothing you can do to unpick it.

Biological human males are what we call men. That is the definition. You observe something and you give it a name. Man. In that definition are the physical characteristics. You cannot change those. Feeling as something else does not change those. You cannot "unpick" this Rat.

Gender is external - what we associate as gender, are all external stereotypes. I haven't yet seen any definition of gender or argument from a TW why they feel as a woman, that does not rely on external gender stereotypes. It's not possible. Because if it were solely internal then there would be 7 billion genders - everyone would have their very own internal gender. And then TW trying to box everyone into 2 categories and say "well we are in this one with you women", would be nonsense anyway.

And again, gender is not sex. We need sex segregated safe spaces for women.

You're welcome to believe in God, souls and transubstantiation. I respect you believe in those things. Crack on. I believe in Reiki and crystal therapy, I can pull out a lot of research that suggests there might, maybe be something in it that we don't understand yet, and I'm equally absolutely fine with 95% of MN telling me its a lot of expensive woo.

But no one has the right to enshrine the enforced belief of subjective faith in law, or remove rights from an entire biological sex because just possibly this might not be all hugely misogynistic, MRA, gynephobic woo. Your right to subjectively believe whatever you want - great. Your right to insist I must believe it too and hand over my objective reality, legal rights and a mind of my own? No. No normal person would believe that is moral or right.

'Back to fundamentals'

Rat bear with me, but one more time for me, as I need more clarity

Gender: the definition is?

If I ask some very straightforward clarification questions, in good faith, will you give a straight answer?

Datun exactly, I follow some lesbian twitter accounts, it's shocking the level of not just abuse but downright persecution they face. Anyone who discusses this issue but isn't aware of this, or ignores it, has in my opinion no right to argue.

@blackberryfairy I believe in a soul, and knows of people who do. But having seen the massive damage that blasphemy laws produce in Pakistan I'd never want to have people legislate on what others need to believe to accommodate my belief.

know

I'm debating for my position though.

Why? What's your interest in this? What possible good do you think you are doing? You have no new insights, your 'position' is unacceptable to either 'side' and you don't appear to have any understanding of how this is all playing out on the ground in real people's lives.

So carry on with your 6th-form-esque navel-gazing irrelevant cartesian wank. Meanwhile please excuse the rest of us while we carry on doing what we can to mitigate the damage from this clusterfuck on the real, material lives of women, children and transsexuals.

A woman in a mans body is a man. Because having a man’s body is what makes you a man. And therefore your brain is Male, as are your kidneys, spleen etc. And most definitely your penis.

TRA Logic, where a penis doesn’t have a gender, but your brain does.

haha shon faye. so is he happy about his own erasure given that he says women are being erased while simultaneously saying he is a woman?

I miss Milo. He was entertaining and developed his gayness and extravagance in line with his increasing popularity and reaction of liberals. People like shon are just crude and unimaginative, boring and incapable of actually arguing.

Thanks for your reply Datun, you are always very informative and I do appreciate that.

I accept there people with gender dysphoria. I don't accept that they are the opposite sex, in any way, shape or form

Not the opposite sex (I know some TRAs don't see it that way, but I'm not "some TRAs"), but I do believe they may be of the opposite gender than is traditionally associated with their sex.

And it's so just not some knob on Twitter., Seriously you have just revealed that you are uninformed about this

I believe you, and I have had limited exposure to the fall-out. But do you think my seeing it (I will go looking) will change my reasonable belief that a transwoman may indeed be a woman? Do you think it should? Is that the basis on which we should be forming our opinions? I'm starting from the fundamentals, and I think it's right to do so.

Everything you've described is abhorrent. I will stand against any of that any day of the week. That doesn't stop me believing a transman when they tell me they're a man (not all the time, not every time, but fundamentally).

Haven't you seen people basing this whole debate on who's "right" and who's "wrong"? Don't you see any problems with that?