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

Ps Rat I am not picking on you, just trying to show it is dangerous to enshrine on law something unprovable.

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

The problem is the descriptions we have are insufficient to describe the trans reality without imposing upon our rights, and we're the masters not the slaves when it comes to assigning definitions. If some of the problems are alleviated by recognising the shortcomings of our existing definitions and re-evaluating them then surely that's a good thing?

Offer 3 services and spaces. Problem solved.

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

I think I'm being evenhanded, except I don't have to argue with you about respecting your beliefs because you already respect them, and I'm not addressing the TRAs because they aren't here to listen.

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.

A section of it is certainly that, but all over the globe, in every single country whose high court has ruled to recognise transgenderism?

The problem is not the fucking definitions.

The problem is women are being put at a real physical risk of rape, torture, beatings and disfigurement in spaces and places where once they were relatively safe.

Look what happens to women and children without protection in War zones. For fucks sake look at the recent Oxfam scandal.

When your head is being smashed against a wall in the ladies toilets and you are being anally raped Rat I wonder if you'll pause and ask "but how do you define yourself my dear attacker?" (And I sincerely hope this never happens to you but it most certainly will to someone if SI becomes legal).

Rat do you feel the same way about race? If I as a white woman said I had an innate sense of being black, would you accept that?

If not, can I ask why? Would you be happy for me to take a scholarship which is neant for a black woman?

*meant

I haven't lost track of what you're saying at all. I am just showing your contradictions, if you don't like that and want to pretend you just don't understand, fine. But I will keep pointing them out if I wish.

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

Yes, and my statement might be either true or false.

I respect that you are sticking around and arguing your point, but your position is illogical. In fact, impossible.

You are literally saying that you accept a provably false claim. Like saying "I accept black is white if you tell me so"

If woman means adult human female then it cannot also mean adult human male.

A square cannot mean both 'a four sided shape of equal sides and angles' AND 'a triangle that I declare to be a square'

The two definitions are mutually exclusive.

I don't think you're picking on me Italian, I've seen you all over mumsnet for years and you're always lovely. Plus have you seen how some people speak to me??

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

It's a touchy one because I can see how it could look like any legislation protecting someone's right to live as and be accepted as the gender they believe they are could be interpreted as forcing people "believe" they are that gender.

It's tough, there are no easy answers. The idea of the legislation was, I think, to allow people to live within their reality and not be challenged in instances when it really isn't anybody's business. There are caveats on there for when it really IS someone else's business, but whether they go far enough I wouldn't like to say.

The debate comes when people rightly say "hang on, in these instances when you say it's not our business we think it actually IS, and this is why" - and mostly I agree with those; sometimes I don't, and sometimes I think the issue can be circumvented. What I'm saying is fundamentally I agree with legislating to protect people going about their own private lives, but I am very much up for debating how that can achieved without encroaching on the rights of everybody else (women) in each specific circumstance.

I haven't told you to stop MrG, knock yourself out.

Argh dammit, I'm afraid I have to run.

Still laughing at the idea of Descartes being the be-all and end-all of philosophy of mind. Uh, hello, Dennett, Penrose, Rorty, the Churchlands...

It was never an area of philosophy that particularly floated my boat, but to think that Descartes said all there was to be said about it, and that no-one has ever taken issue with dualism really isn't establishing your scholarly credentials here.

@RatRolyPoly "I've seen you all over mumsnet for years and you're always lovely." That is so kind. Thank you.

"The idea of the legislation was, I think, to allow people to live within their reality and not be challenged in instances when it really isn't anybody's business. There are caveats on there for when it really IS someone else's business, but whether they go far enough I wouldn't like to say."

I think you have hit the nail on the head. If someone wants to wear certain clothes, be called by a certain name etc, no worries. And there are loads of other things that would be no worries for me. But there are things that could potentially open the door to danger to women and also where denying reality is not good for anyone.

"What I'm saying is fundamentally I agree with legislating to protect people going about their own private lives, but I am very much up for debating how that can achieved without encroaching on the rights of everybody else (women) in each specific circumstance." Well we are in agreement.

Night night.

"Woman" and "man" are social constructs in the way that "black" and "disabled" are social constructs.

Physical body + societal beliefs = social construct

Social constructs like this are applied extremely crudely. Simple markers - the colour of your skin, the presence of a penis, any obvious physical disabilities - are all that's needed to pigeon-hole you and determine which social construct is applied to you from birth. Many people in the group concerned will not feel the rules of the social construct should apply to them. Social constructs are often the home of bigotry, and, as a reaction to that, they are also a form of group membership.

Then there are other social constructs that form on the basis of less obvious markers. These markers are not physical but take the form of behaviours:- ASD, gay, etc. This group of social constructs includes the trans social construct.

Then there is a further set of social constructs that apply to choices you make about group membership: Christian, Tory, vegetarian, etc.

The trans movement is trying to redefine "woman" as a social construct that originates from (innate) behaviour, not from the (non-innate) pigeon-holing of a person on the basis of their physical body. This is problematic because the feminist quest for equality has proceeded like this:

Misogynistic view of women: women are weak and inferior because they have inferior bodies and brains. Their feeble minds mean they should only do "nice" things or "caring" things or "family" things (which often includes an awful lot of mentally and physically demanding work, ironically).

Feminist counter-argument: our bodies may be different, but our brains are absolutely not different from men's, at least not different enough to justify being treated as inferior. More than that - the differences in minds are not innate, but come from the social constructs that are placed upon us from birth. We're your mental equals, we are as smart as you and as tough as you and perfectly capable of being grown-ups.

Then along come TRAs and argue from the misogynistic side of the debate. The whole "lady penis" is a red herring. The real subtext of the TRA position is this: women's minds are innately different after all. All those years of women arguing that women's minds are (sans stereotyping) no different from men's minds? Gone. Burned away in a moment for the sake of trans "equality". If women like sparkly stuff, high-heels, make-up etc and men don't? Well, that's not because of how they were raised but is because of how they feel (with their lady brains) - men really, truly are just more grown-up.

When you recognise that simple fact, it doesn't take a genius to spot the reason why many feminists have a problem with TRAs.

The only way forward is for the TRAs to recognise that they do not have "lady brains". Instead, they have a genetic or developmental difference that means the social construct they feel should apply to them has not been applied to them. This means that their understanding of the social construct of being a woman is that of an outsider. They have not lived the social construct from birth, and will never be "real" women.

They are gender immigrants.

And here's the thing with immigrants. There are two types.

The first type is the type that wants to integrate, to be sensitive to local customs and traditions, and to be respectful of the community they want to be part of.

The second type comes in all guns blazing (often literally) and attempts to impose its will upon the original group, redefining what the group is and what it should hold as important.

TRAs are acting a lot more like the latter than the former.

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.

I love you, pencils.

It's not either/or though is it

But it is, when whats being asked for is womens rights. This is the issue. Male people (or men, as an adult human male is a man) are asking for womens (or adult human females') rights.

I am sure many (even all) feminists would be totally up for fighting for rights based on gender expression, or gender non-conformity. I have seen it suggested on these very boards before. What has also been suggested is joining in a fight for a third space unisex option to be added to the existing female/male spaces. The third space option is totally unacceptable apparently, despite being an obvious compromise, no?

What noone should be exepecting feminists/women to do, is given up their own rights/spaces, rights/spaces that are based on their sex. And that is whats being asked.

A section of it is certainly that, but all over the globe, in every single country whose high court has ruled to recognise transgenderism?

I hear you. You're ok with it. I'm emphatically not. Many women are emphatically not.

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.

Very very much this. ^^

It's tough, there are no easy answers. The idea of the legislation was, I think, to allow people to live within their reality and not be challenged in instances when it really isn't anybody's business.

No, it wasn't. It was a technicality to allow same-sex marriage and pension rights.

Neither of which is now an issue.

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

So an adult female human or someone who is not an adult female human but identifies as an adult female human?

This is your defintion of woman?!

This is basically, human.

A disabled person is a person with a disability or a person without a disability who identifies as having a disability.

A black person is a person who is black, or a person who is not black who identiies as a person who is black

A homosexual person is a person who is homosexual, or a heterosexual person who identifies as being homosexual

Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that no one actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?
The elephant in the room is that trans identified males, transwomen, are a subset of category male, not female. The powers that be have already codified a Big Lie into law and now wish to expand the Big Lie. Including punishments for women who refuse to submit to the Big Lie. "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston"