Can you be a feminist and be completely accepting of transgender individuals?

[MagicSweets]

It seems to be a thing that the majority of feminists on here are against transgender people. I'm just curious if you can be a feminist and completely accept transgender individuals.

Around about midnight, sweets started to look like a sea lion. Which is a shame, as the discussion was going so well.

Never ceases to amaze me that women get scolded for not being nice enough to absolutely everyone on the planet when going to the root cause would be so much faster. So Magic can I suggest you pop along to your nearest men's rights Reddit/web forum and tell them to get men to stop men from raping and harming women and trans women? We know it's not all men, but as they allegedly work to raise awareness of men's issues, then male violence must be a priority for them to solve. They'd no doubt welcome you with open arms as a true ally.

Also, if this trans person you've mentioned is a complete stranger to you, then how do you:

1. Know he's what you might deem "truly trans"?
2. Know what he felt about being given the key to the ladies?
3. Know he was "validated" by the whole thing?

I think you'd be lying that if you woke up tomorrow a man, you wouldn't continue wearing the same clothes you do now, styling your hair the same, etc. I know I wouldn't.

If a woman woke up as a man tomorrow, she would be a fucking miracle. As waking up having changed sex overnight is impossible.

I have short hair, wear jeans and a t-shirt most days, so technically, I wake up as a man most day. This is compounded by then having to use sanitary protection shortly afterwards for around 6 days in every 28. Also, I have to sit down to piss. And wear a bra for work. And those breasts, damn they get in the way. Oh fuck, I really am female.

Your arguments are not arguments are they? Lets face it, you saw all the press about the MN vs Corbyn and thought you would come and try and wind people up on here. Like all the others, we play along nicely until you get yourself into a tangle.

I think you'd be lying that if you woke up tomorrow a man, you wouldn't continue wearing the same clothes you do now, styling your hair the same, etc. I know I wouldn't.

You don’t believe in innate gender identity?

You lost me at “I suppose feeling female is a strong desire to follow those stereotypes.“

However, I have recently come across a lovely man, who actually does just that and asked a shop if he was allowed to use the women's toilet (it's a single toilet) and they said yes and he was genuinely pleased. I didn't really see any harm in that?

What an interesting story you tell about a complete stranger you met in a shop. Did you have a nice little chat about his gender feelz after he used the female toilet? I'm curious how you deduced his thought process.

Yet another case of an OP ignoring any posts made by actual trans people. Funny how they never want to engage with those - one could be forgiven for thinking it's because they don't fit the narrative of MN being full of trans-haters.

Psst! OP - can I let you into a secret?

The vast majority of trans people (male or female) really don't "pass". They may look pretty convincingly feminine / masculine in photos (particularly staged photos released by themselves or their agents), but IRL there are so many more tells that most people would be able to tell most of the time that the person in front of them is trans.

I am a feminist and not only do I accept transgender individuals, I respect and celebrate them for rejecting the rigid gender roles imposed on the sexes by patriarchy.

But gender is not sex, and a trans person who gender identifies as a woman is not a woman. This is not transphobia -it is biological fact.

1/ The World Health Organization states:
'Sex' refers to the biological & physiological characteristics that define men and women.
'Gender' refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities & attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

2/ The definition of 'woman' is 'adult human female'.
A person with female sex characteristics eg vagina, womb, breasts, clitoris, uterus, cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes and genetic & chromosomal differences.
Woman is as distinct from human males as males are from chimpanzees.

3/ Other than sex differences, all scientific evidence suggests there are few, if any differences between human males and human females.
Yet one group has endured thousands of years of violence, subjugation, exploitation and oppression at the hands of the other.

4/ Women are oppressed because of our biological sex, not our gender identities.
Why do women have to fight for education?
Why is our work so undervalued & underpaid?
Why are contraception & abortion political issues?
Why are women's bodies fetishised?
Why the terrible violence?

5/ Feminism =the advocacy of women's rights on ground of equality of the sexes -NOT gender.
Transgender people should be celebrated, valued & respected for rejecting rigid gender roles.
But they are no more "women" than are gay men.

Gender is a spectrum, but sex is a dichotomy.

Accepted by the person he asked. They said he could. It made him happy to feel accepted.

Not my job to validate men - whether they are "genuine" aka dysphoric or "not genuine" aka fetishistic - when that validation comes at the cost of abandoning safeguarding for women and girls built up with the blood, sweat and tears of my foresisters over more than a century.

Get the men to budge up, make their spaces safe, and do the fucking validating for once.

The assistant probably didn’t want any aggro/photo on Twitter, and it was above their pay grade to debate the pros and cons at allowing a man to use a ladies loo. He isn’t Rosa Parks or Joan of Arc...

"completely accept transgender individuals"

Individuals are not for me to accept or not. They simply are.

But what you're actually asking is if people here are fully on board with what supporting what any particular individual wants to insist is his/her particular personal truth. The answer is that neither law, nor morality, nor custom, nor even common decency require us to affirm as true absolutely anything people may say about themselves or the world, no matter how much they may believe it.

I do not believe that female "essence" can become trapped in the body of and under the control of a biological male, because no one has proved that such a thing is so. A man may feel all he likes that he is actually a woman; his chromosomes say differently. Furthermore, people feel all kinds of things that are at odds with reality, and while I would not ever question that they are likely undergoing real and painful struggles, I do question whether I and all other women must be willing to surrender all our rights, privacy, and places to the insistence of biological males simply because of their personal feelings.

Ps -I'm still a Corbyn supporter.
I think he has made/is making a mistake in this issue, as are many, many other generally decent and politically enlightened people.

The media is almost entirely pro the radical trans-activist line that calls anyone who defines woman as an adult human female with biological sex characteristics a transphobe.
People have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that women who oppose transgender gender self identification being allowed to trump biological sex are the same as homophobes and racists.
We need to educate and inform, reason and discuss, and try really hard not to engage in abusive spats on social media.

I realise there's a lot of woman-baiting going on, and a lot of abuse is being directed at us, and we are being silenced - by trans activists, by the media and unfortunately by the Labour Party.
But I don't think we will get people to listen or understand by online shouting at them.

And I still trust Corbyn more than Theresa May or Vince Cable any day of the week (and the Greens have put some stuff out suggesting they are also swallowing the trans activist line, or are at least conflicted).

So I support Corbyn.
Unfortunately I'm not in the UK and can't vote either there or in my country of residence. This prevents me being really active on this topic other than online. I can't join Labour or Momentum or write to my MP as I don't have one. Otherwise I would do all three, and campaign actively to get women heard and understood.

Meanwhile A Woman's Place and FairPlay For Women are doing a good job, as far as I can see from following them on social media.

Just to reiterate, I don't think Corbyn-blaming is helpful here - criticism is of course legitimate, as is discussion - but some people seem to be trying to turn this issue into the usual Corbyn-bashing.

The other parties are also shite. I know she's gone now but Justine Greening was trying to push through legislation on transgender self ID. The Tories are equally implicated, and frankly the whole woman hating thing is right up their street.

Can you genuinely not see why a 3rd option may not be particularly nice?

I honestly cant see the problem

Either individual cubicles with sink etc

Or three options, male, female and gender neutral

Id probably be in the gender neutral...unless it was a poo

Its the making the ladies gender neutral which is really really really really pissing me off

I mean really

Im pissed off about a lot of it but im furious about that

Public toilets in general aren't particularly nice unless they're in a fancy hotel or something. "Nice" is not a requirement.

Of course feminists 'accept' transgender people.

we accept 'transwomen' as we would any man
and transmen as women.

Refusing to validate a delusion is not failure of acceptance. It's just acknowledgement of reality.

Aside from anything else, I actually think people who are prepared to pretend are doing more harm than good. You know you can't force the rest of the world to lie about something this important, and yet you're still encouraging a deluded and vulnerable person to place all of their self-worth in how others pretend to perceive them. How do you imagine this will end well?

I'd also arguing that fully accepting a very feminine man as a man (not a man minus, or a man plus, or a man with any other kind of modifier attached, just a man) is actually a far more radical and progressive position than the one trans activists would like us to adopt.

Absolutely Angryattackkittens.

This movement is so bloody regressive and nonsensical I cannot believe the amount of otherwise intelligent people who are giving it their full considered approval,

Can you genuinely not see why a 3rd option may not be particularly nice?

Can you see why asking women to prioritise being 'nice' above protecting our rights to safety, privacy and dignity is unreasonable?

Can you genuinely not see why a 3rd option may not be particularly nice?

Again. Not my job to validate men, even the vulnerable ones. Let other men bear the responsibility for accepting and validating them.

Where did all the glam rockers go? Those were the days. I've nothing against men wearing make up, bling, elaborate clothes... in fact, I like it. But why do they have to claim to be women?

I'm all for men being as flamboyant and eye catching as they like. Love me some androgynous men in tight leather pants.

Doesn't make them women, though.

Could we just bring back the 80's? Swoon...

Perhaps this current explosion in numbers of men my age transing is nostalgia. They weren't confident enough to go full glam as teens in the 80s, so they are doing it now.

Sorry, that's a bit glib.

I have an issue with self-ID. It's men in woman-face using male privilege to absolutely take the piss out of women, enter our spaces and trample on our rights. Self-ID needs to go. I'd have thought if one actually reads the boards it would be obvious what the issue is. If you don't read you'll land here asking silly questions won't you.