We accept that transgender women are transgender women..

[Beansonapost]

But why don't transgender women accept that they are transgender women?

What is it about the label trans that's trans activists do not like? We accept what you say you are ; there have been provisions in law to protect the trans identifying persons...

So why is it that you now reject the very same thing you say you are by proclaiming to be a woman?

Is there an underlying issue we are not understanding? Or is this coming from a place of hatred towards women?

I am confused because I don't understand why you would fight for acceptance only to turn around and say actually it's not what we wanted. I wonder if the end game has always been to erode and erase women... and what we have fought for over generations. I don't see many transgender men asking men to redefine what a man is... I don't see a shift in maleness to accommodate transgender men... so why is all the hatred aimed at women and the insistence that we move up/over because there surely is more space in the queue.

I also don't see homosexuals asking men to residing themselves so they can fit in... I see most homosexuals living their "truth" so to speak and being exactly who they are without eroding others... I'd say the same for lesbians and others under the LGB umbrella.

So why are trans people rejecting the word/term/definition of trans?

Forgive my ignorance I maybe be overthinking this... DH and I were watching the olympics and having a discussion about women's sport.... and why trans people aren't lobbying for their own space in sports instead of trying to move into women's sport. So I thought I would ask...

Because it has always been easier for dominant people to colonise and take what isn't theirs than start from scratch.

Tbh there are a few factors at play.

Hatred of women and an enjoyment at eroding our boundaries and putting us in our place, fetishisation about being a women - especially a 'lesbian' woman, validation - not wanting to be 'other'.

Not all TIMs are all of the above, some do want to blend in and get on with their lives without a fuss but the vocal TRAs that are pushing for legislation change that will harm women have a deep hatred of everything we are.

I'm not convinced that most TRAs are what the wider world considers to be trans. They are MRAs that have found a cause that has the double whammy of providing lots of validation and attention whilst putting the boot in on women, all under the guise of being super progressive and playing the victim.

I do not accept that men are 'transgender women'. Men are not any type of women.

Women must stop indulging this Big Lie in order to be 'nice'. Our socialised desire to be polite and cede the word 'woman' simply because they men say they will suffer if we don't it is what has allowed them to run roughshod over our basic rights and reality itself.

There is no such thing as a 'transgender woman'. They are just men.

Having just learned that most of the transgender advocacy is government sponsored I can only conclude that it is a combination of misogyny and homophobia.
They are adopting the Iranian approach to solving the "homosexual problem".

There is no such thing as a 'transgender woman'. They are just men

I agree.

DH and I were watching the olympics and having a discussion about women's sport.... and why trans people aren't lobbying for their own space in sports instead of trying to move into women's sport.

Because it's much easier to beat women in sport than it is to beat transwomen, what with having men's bodies, and all.

I agree they are men.

I'm just saying generally in principle we accept they are trans women, so why are they now rejecting their own label to fit into "gender" norms... surely that goes against this whole new ideal... where gender doesn't exist.

Why do you want to become a woman, if you are proud to be trans? What's the appeal in womanhood? Why not fight to create your own space... where you fit in... why are you encroaching on others?

I feel they are rejecting what a trans woman is... what it means to be trans etc. Partly because the reality is not many people accept them outside of themselves... it's not a matter of persecution etc... but they look masculine regardless of what they do to themselves and probably find themselves on the fringes of where they would like to be... so if people stop calling them trans I think in their heads they have made it and are no longer on the outside.. but they seem to inherently forget and ignore biology. Cognitive dissonance.

And yes I agree it's much easier to beat women than accept you are shit at the sport and cut your losses... but fragile egos and all.

The whole government agenda aspect is actually scary... it explains how it's taken such a short time for all of this to end up in schools etc and how it's being rushed through so quickly... I do believe it's Scotland... and I do believe this oneupmanship on how liberal you can be... needs to slow down and common sense needs to find its way back into the conversations.

I think it's the other way around - many MIT talk about nothing else but their transness, it's that they don't want women to use the word women to describe themselves.

Many times it's unremarkable men using their trans status to get attention and jobs they wouldn't get as a man. They don't want to be a regular women, they want to be women+.

"Hell there are plenty of transwomen who don’t think anyone pre-op is entitled to use the word woman at all."

But they want to define women as 'a man with surgery'?

We use language to access material resources. 'Woman' is a linguistic £1 to 'transwoman's' 50p. In most contexts, 'woman' taps into associations that 'transwoman' doesn't. In other words, it defers to accompanying words and phrases in a way that 'transwoman', being a portmanteau, and a relatively new one at that, doesn't. For example, you're not going to start reprinting the canon so that all mentions of 'woman' are replaced by 'cis woman'. And even if you did, there would be many who have read the old copies with the old terminology in them.
IMO the trans debate needs to be addressed from the point of intersection between human sciences & semiotics.

I think the most accurate term is 'trans-identifying male human'. I use 'transwoman' as a compromise in the interests of smooth discussion, but will not use 'trans woman' or 'transgender woman' to refer to male adults.

On another note, is anyone else unsettled by Wiki's transactivist bias?

Many times it's unremarkable men using their trans status to get attention and jobs they wouldn't get as a man. They don't want to be a regular women, they want to be women+.

Yep.

@velourvoyageur definitely agree.

But I still don't understand why they are now rejecting their own label... the same one they "fought" for. I don't see many other LGB individuals rejecting what /who they are, in fact they embrace what makes them different.

I wonder if this is a wider mental health problem and really they cannot /will never accept who they are regardless of what they present themselves as to the world. So instead of dealing with their own mental health they would prefer to ram it down everyone's throat to satisfy their warped fantasy about who/what a woman is ... because if the masses "agree" with them they feel validated even though it's only in their head.

I wonder how many transitioned people still struggle with their identity?

If you accept yourself, why do you need outside validation to feel justified with your decisions. This is often observed in how many of them dress etc. As they still view women from a gawking male perspective so the skimpier the better... more attention more "validation".

But I do not know many women who are needy for public approval.

Don't read much wiki... but since people who post could be anyone I suspect the trans bias can be reversed?

@CisMyArse love the name!

I'm going to copywrite it and get it made into a logo.

I may even slap stickers of my logo on my own brand of shampoo, conditioner, bath products, lotions etc peel off my herbal essences stickers and flog them on stalls outside Lush.

Car bumper stickers, t shirts, printed socks..... a while new world beckons me

Almost all transwomen are perfectly happy with that. The tiny handful of vocal TRAs who claim transwomen are literally actual biological women don’t represent the majority of transwomen.

I can't agree. There are many groups involved in transactivism and only one of them - genuinely dysphoric males aka transsexuals - are as you say. They are the minority. Many of them are as scared to speak up as we are, yes. But they are the minority. The vast majority of so-called transwomen keep their genitalia and have no intention of full physical transition.

We are fighting against:

a large number of AGP males
a large number of misogynistic leftie dudebros
a large number of pomo-addled SJW activists

We are on the side of:

a small number of genuinely dysphoric males
feminists
lesbians
parents

The MH thing is very hotly contested by many! Does anyone else get pissed off at TRA stigmatisation of MH issues? You get more and more the impression than many TRA aren't invested in gaining an objective view of these issues which would in the long term be helpful. Steadfastly refusing to even consider that you have an MH issue on the grounds that you don't want an MH issue because of what you think it represents is shortsighted and just reinforces existing stigma of mental illness. You need to be able to label something so you can pool appropriate resources to target a solution. It's not a slur.

I think it may link to MH for some, but this still combines with what I detect in most testimonials by transgender people which don't mention dysphoria - a strict conservative and reactionary loyalty to gender as a system which assigns (unnecessary) meaning to sexed bodies. Why else do TIM who have surgery ask for neovaginas as default instead of stopping at simply removing their cocks, if the issue is distress caused by certain body parts which are socially neutral blank slates?
The junction between mental illness and social trends is often illuminating in showing these trends in their more acute incarnations. So yes, MH imbalance may push this loyalty into overdrive, but since May's PinkNews speech (where she gave the seal of approval on the idea that trans has nothing to do with MH, the better to dismantle more NHS provision for trans issues with), I doubt we'll see very much research being carried out on the direct link between (as opposed to coexistence of) MH issues and transgenderism.

As for editing Wiki, that's the interesting bit - as far as I can see, the articles for 'Woman', 'Man' and 'Trans woman' [sic] are locked so can't be edited by just anyone (but 'Trans man' isn't!). Edits of TRA terminology (e.g. 'cis', 'assigned at birth') get changed back to the original very quickly.

This is worth a read about the Ohio case where a trans youth was placed in custody with their grandparents. It breaks down exactly what is going on with the case and has big implications for the treatment of mental health. I was pleased that the courts picked up on this aspect.

"It is a concern for the Court that the statistic presented by Dr. Conard, the Director of the Transgender Program, in her testimony is that I 00% of the patients seen by Children’s Hospital Clinic who present for care are considered to be appropriate candidates for continued gender treatment."

4thwavenow.com/2018/02/17/cincinnati-trans-teen-custody-decision-more-than-meets-the-eye/

Re: validation...I can only imagine how lonely it can be to be trans and not really believe yourself that you really are what you have asked everyone else to think of you as, especially when those around you then become militant about defending your new identity and shut down debate if anyone challenges it in the name of 'support'. Identities get locked down very very quickly. From reading some bits online, I get the impression that trans people often feel pressured into accepting 100% of TRA ideology if they want to feel part of a trans community - and this community is sometimes the only source of support they have if their families etc are not accepting of 'GNC' individuals.
(Am skeptical about the use of 'GNC' in relation to trans people, because I think this just entails matching of 'feminine' preferences (aka ladybrain) to a female body, which is in my view anything but NC.)

I think Jazz Jennings would have grounds to sue the makers of her programme, it is such blatant exploitation of a vulnerable teenager - even if there is a clause in their contract which makes explicit that they are 'allowed' to detransition should they want to, can you imagine having to do that as a public figure whose transition has been captured on screen since they were tiny? It gives them no mental space to even start acknowledging any seeds of doubt when they have to stick to the party line or face enormous backlash from the liberal LGBT community. I'm sure Jazz must have felt uncertain at certain points regarding the big questions (e.g. 'can I actually ever be a woman'), but how comfortable can they be in exploring this, in case it snowballs and has them seriously questioning a decision that's not only huge for them personally but has also been heralded as a milestone in trans history? Having a vulnerable adult be the face of a political agenda is one thing, but putting that on the shoulders of a depressed and anxious teenager is unconscionable.

What is it about the label trans that's trans activists do not like? We accept what you say you are ; there have been provisions in law to protect the trans identifying persons...

There are two groups of MtF Trans / TIMs. There are men with actual gender dysphoria. That tends to manifest early in life and seems to be a real body image disorder, like anorexia is. Then there are autogynephilliacs. Those who get gratification from imagining they are a woman. IME, most of the trans activists are this latter group and I'm not even convinced they aren't the majority of TIMs but it's hard to tell because they are so disproportionately loud and active.

Of the TIMs I have known personally in life one way or another three were autogynephiles and the fourth I honestly couldn't say - it was in a work setting and he was extremely reserved. I think he may have been a genuine dysphoriac. Because it's a sexual fetish, you tend to get two things, imo. An exaggerated (and often slutty) idea of what it means to be a woman, focused on make-up and outfits. And secondly a hatred of things that remind them they are a man.

That's my take on it, anyway.

wiki - yes definitely transactivists out there working very hard using bots to control the language.

@OvaHere

It's disheartening to know that medical professionals are so quick to "diagnose" gender dysphoria* instead of properly treating what patients present with.

Why not attempt to treat the anxiety and depression... before deciding that the real issue is the child's gender identity?

How then do you stop the child/individual from being anxious and depressed... as someone who suffers from both I understand the importance of not treating the symptoms of the condition but trying to get to the root cause. In my case I have managed to identify this myself of course with the help of a therapist. But the interesting thing was conclusions were never made for me, but rather after many sessions and discussions I came to my own conclusions... I think that should be the role of a good medical practitioners in mental health. Unless an individual is incapable then decisions should be made for them and what's in their best interests.. not what serves the current narrative and boosts statistics. I think at the moment is about numbers... the more "we recognise" the sooner we can study/experiment with hormones etc. Push the boundaries of science etc etc.

It only serves their interests... I await the day we can see evidence of the long term use of hormones and gender reassignment surgeries. I've read a lot of regret stories and the aftermath of all the surgeries and hormones does not sound very nice, but these are the voices we are not hearing. Only the "it's important to believe" what these people say. But I'm not convinced trans people believe entirely what they are spouting otherwise why fight to fit into another "category".

why are you not happy to just be a transgender person?

What is now so wrong with being trans?

I think a lot of TIMs and especially TAs can't make it as males i.e. they are beta- rather than alphas. So, believing women are lesser beings they see a chance to perform alpha male status by "being a woman" but a specially alpha woman.

If you are little fish in a big pond, why not go and be a big fish in a smaller pond they reckon.

By smaller pond I don't mean numerically obviously but a pond of less significance, in the warped views of TAs.

There is a traditional subtext in most societies histories that women are failed men. Not really surprising that it would manifest in young men believing that if they feel they fail as men they must be women.
The stereotypes embedded in society are deeply damaging our children.