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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Can you all just lay off trans people

742 replies

cjferg · 10/02/2018 17:11

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

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Italiangreyhound · 11/02/2018 21:23

"You can't just say "transwomen are men, you get nothing". Who has said that? As far as I see women have had to ask to try and be able to retan the right to ask for female HCP, female staff in women's refuges and lesbians are currently fighting their own fucking community to get the right not to have to sleep with trans women! How does that mean trans women get nothing!

"Page after page of people actively denying any personal, internal EXPERIENCE of their womanhood that wasn't either the reality of their bodies or their treatment by other people."

I don't experience my womanhood as you call it. I experience being a mum and one of my kids popped out of my vagina, and the other did not (he is adopted) and being a mum is a bloody big part of my life. I guess my experiences of being a woman are very much projected onto my life, expectations of how women and mothers should act!

PencilsInSpace "Sun 11-Feb-18 16:43:23" and BarrackerBarmer "Sun 11-Feb-18 17:21:15" Great posts.

Italiangreyhound · 11/02/2018 21:25

@cjferg you don't need to apologusie to me for posting, that excellent post by @DN4GeekinDerby has made this whole thread worth while!

Every time someone comes on and is angry about this issue more people engage.

I really angry about this because it affects a lot of women who are not like me! Women who have been raped or abused, who need refuge from 'domestic violence', thankfully so far none of these things affect me.

Plus also affects a lot of transexual women who were just going about their lives and have now been thrown into an unwelcome spotlight.

And most of all I am fucking fuming that lots of gender non-conforming children, teens and young adults are being pushed into a mediatised future by social contagion, which I am witnessing close to home with my own eyes. So you can be as angry as you like because this whole mess is making a lot of people angry too.

blackberryfairy · 11/02/2018 21:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Geronimoleapinglizards · 11/02/2018 21:27

Science assumes a material position because science is concerned with primarily investigating the material. There are of course areas of scienceprecisely concernedwith investigating this very problem

Ah material reality. It's a wonderful thing.

I don't disagree by the way. There are indeed scientists studying all sorts of wild and wonderful things. I particularly love the Society for Psychical Research Perhaps they could explain a little more about gender feelz and lady brains? Maybe we should ask Gillian McKeith with the Phd she bought off the internet?

People are working on all kinds of things. Many of them don't stand up to scrutiny, alas.

If there is reputable science supporting the idea that there is an innate gender that is linked to your mind but is separate to your brain and physical body, I'd really love to see it

PencilsInSpace · 11/02/2018 21:28

If you want to start from fundamentals then you need to answer this:

What is a woman?

Your answer needs to include all the women on here who say they have no gender identity and all the men who say they they identify as a woman. It needs to exclude transmen as well as the majority of men who don't identify as women. And it needs to be practical enough for us to use to safeguard our rights.

RatRolyPoly · 11/02/2018 21:29

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

You were bringing Descartes in as an authority to back up your ludicrous, ridiculous, laughable argument that there is such a thing as 'being born in the wrong body'.

This is what I actually said:

Seriously everybody needs to go out and read about the mind body problem; ever heard of Descartes? "I think therefore I am"? The philosophy of mind??

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

Of course, but I will have to go to bed soon.

Gender: the definition is?

In my opinion the term gender is used to refer to the societal expectations associated with ones biological sex, and also to refer to some innate "sense" of one's own being.

BarrackerBarmer · 11/02/2018 21:32

ratrolypoly

Would you mind taking a look at my previous post? And apologies if I'm asking you to repeat.

BarrackerBarmer · 11/02/2018 21:32

Cross post

Juzza12 · 11/02/2018 21:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PencilsInSpace · 11/02/2018 21:32

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?

Yeah it's like some people say the world is round and others say it's flat. We should make sure we are not privileging either viewpoint because that would be oppressive and problematic.

MillyTantTerf · 11/02/2018 21:33

OK I'll lie down and roll over. Rat and the trans win.

Take my name, Woman.

It won't make you happy because you'll never really feel pain or pleasure as a woman. And that's what this is about isn't it?

You don't want the reality of a woman's life, you just want to experience her sexuality. You want to have her orgasms.

But you know you can't so in your anger and frustration you want to destroy her, obliterate her very existence even though you had a mother who bore you and in most cases loved you with total compassion and understanding.

She would die for you. Now you want to kill her because you cannot be her.

RatRolyPoly · 11/02/2018 21:35

What is a woman?

An adult female human and/or one who identifies as such.

I think our rights should be protected on the basis of our immutable sex. But please, don't turn me into someone who needs to have all the answers as to how to reach a workable solution! If any one single person could do that to everyone's satisfaction they would be a genius, but this is how I square the circle in my own mind. I don't think that should be a particular focus though.

Italiangreyhound · 11/02/2018 21:35

@RatRolyPoly why does one's innate sense of being need to be tied into a physical bodily reality that uses word taken (I believe) from grammar to mean the sex of a verb (correct me if I have got that but wrong).

I think what you are describing is personality.

BarrackerBarmer · 11/02/2018 21:36

Those are two different concepts, can we explore the second?

some innate "sense" of one's own being.

That doesn't quite encompass sex or gender - it doesn't explain the this but not that categories of gender.

Can you define it more specifically for one of the genders

Female gender: what is it?

RatRolyPoly · 11/02/2018 21:38

If you'd seen what I have from TAs in my short time on social media engaging with them, you would not believe they were women

Juzza I agree with you, it's disgusting, no doubt. But what of the other hundreds of thousands of trans individuals worldwide? Are they all tarred with the same brush?

LindyHopSkipRunner · 11/02/2018 21:38

I don't think Rat's much of a philosopher. More 'human cisshield'.

Italiangreyhound · 11/02/2018 21:39

When you add "anyone who identifies as" after a descriptor it changes the meaning.

BarrackerBarmer · 11/02/2018 21:40

And a follow up to your previous post

adult female human and/or one who identifies as such.

Do you see the impossibly of identifying as an adult female human when you are not an adult female human?

LindyHopSkipRunner · 11/02/2018 21:40

Absolutely, Italiangreyhound - and rather dramatically.

MrGHardy · 11/02/2018 21:50

You sound more unintelligent by the post Rat.

“An adult female human and/or one who identifies as such.”

Pretty much every TRA says it’s just the latter. Plus it can’t be and or, you can’t identify as being female. You could potentially identify as a woman, if you don’t define woman via biology, but an adult human female is defined by biology. Not identity.

RatRolyPoly · 11/02/2018 21:52

why does one's innate sense of being need to be tied into a physical bodily reality that uses word taken (I believe) from grammar to mean the sex of a verb (correct me if I have got that but wrong).

I don't think it does HAVE to tie in to a bodily reality Italian but some people say that for them it truly does. And I choose to believe them.

That doesn't quite encompass sex or gender - it doesn't explain the this but not that categories of gender.Can you define it more specifically for one of the genders
Female gender: what is it?

I'm not sure I'm following you; I would say the biological sexes are male and female and the primary genders are man and woman.

Do you see the impossibly of identifying as an adult female human when you are not an adult female human?

I say "are you an adult female human?", you say "I am an adult female human". Haven't you identified yourself as such?

DarthVaper · 11/02/2018 21:55

Man and woman aren't gender definitions though. Your argument will always sound a bit crap if you make up your own definitions.

RatRolyPoly · 11/02/2018 21:55

MrsG I think we lost the gist of each others'arguments a while ago. At least I can see that and don't insist that just because you're not making any sense to me that you must in fact be thick.

Myunicornfliessideways · 11/02/2018 21:56

And we always come back to the same thing.

You are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe.

You are declining to show the same respect to others with different beliefs.

You are also defending and arguing for an intolerant, illiberal philosophy that demands that women hand over their beliefs, reality, language, right to meet without the supervision of men etc etc etc etc etc.

And saying, however tacitly, that it is wrong for women to resist this philosophy.

Italiangreyhound · 11/02/2018 21:56

People believe all kinds of cobblers I don't always believe them! I'm well aware being a Christian means people won't believe what I believe!

However writing into law that others have to believe what someone believes, that's dodgy. That's what makes this more like a religion!