Spartacus believes in biology.

[HairyBallTheorem]

Transwomen are biologically male. They are born biologically male and they remain biologically male.

I accept that it must be very hard to suffer from gender dysphoria. I wish transwomen well. I support their right not to be discriminated against in housing, employment and in life in general.

But biology matters. It is biology which means that women in Ireland and across South America and in many other parts of the world are the ones who get pregnant and are then forced to give birth against their will by political systems that deny them the right to abortion. It is biology which enables people in cultures which practice FGM to recognise which babies are female and thus decide which ones' genitals need slicing off with rusty razor blades. It is biology which dictates which foetuses are aborted simply for being female, which infants are allowed to die simply for being female. It is biology which means we are, on average, smaller and less physically strong than men and thus at higher risk of domestic violence up to and including murder (2 a week in this country, into the hundreds in Russia which has recently legalised domestic violence).

I am not prepared to lie about biology. Facts matter. The intersection of facts and political beliefs matters.

This is a hill on which I'm prepared to be banned from Mumsnet.

Took me a while to realise trans-woman actually meant a man wanting to be a woman (and not a woman wanting to be a man).
I started to pronounce it transwo-man in my head to keep me straight.

I am Spartacus.

I am not transophobic; I do not wish for the erasure of trans people. I want them to have a life where they live fear free - free of the fear of abuse, violence and discrimination. In face I wish them the same as I wish for all human beings.

I am also Spartacus; biology isn't bigotry. Science and facts don't care about feelings, and we do need to be able to talk about biology.

I am Spartacus. If your ideology requires you to deny science then it's a bad ideology. Male and female are biological descriptions of our role in sexual reproduction. No more and no less. These terms aren't offensive.

I was rubbish at Biology at school but I know what a biological woman is. And there is no magic way to transform into one!

I am still Spartacus

@TripleRainbow I think we'll get an email a couple of hours before with a Google map to the hill. I'm hoping it's not too windy this time as I've just washed my hair.

I am Spartacus. I am a woman, a female adult human. My sex was noted at birth just like my birth weight, it wasn't assigned since - like most - I'm not intersex.

I cannot change my biological sex, it is what it is, for life. I can dress how I please, partner who I choose and have all manner of operations to alter my appearance. If my bones are dug up in 300 years, I will be identified as female, regardless or not of whether I present in a way society expects a woman to look.

This is as true for me as it is for everyone, male or female.

A trans woman is a male who presents as a woman, they do not become one.

I am still Spartacus. Biology is not bigotry and transwomen are transwomen. Penis is a male sex organ.

Sorry I've not read the whole thread - it's late and I'm tired.

But for people who were Spartacus the first time round - I remember posting, and really thinking I might be banned. MN had banned a few posters for (I think) misgendering. I spend a fair bit of time on MN, so it was quite a big deal at the time.

I'm glad we weren't all banned

Reserve me a place on Spartacus Hill.

We can't 'identify' out of biological reality. It would be amazing if we could! No one would have to get old or ill, and we'd all be beautiful athletes.

I’m pretending I’m just there on the hill because I’m with the band.

This is what we’re playing

Is there an escalator on this hill? I've got these knees..

Spartacus here too. @SexMattersUK www.sexmatters.org.uk/sexmatters.pdf

There are two biological sexes: female and male.

They are set out in our chromosomes from the moment of conception and they never change.

The female and male reproductive roles and differences in physical strength and size between women and men, has led to a social hierarchy between the sex roles, with males placed above females in terms of cultural value, status, participation and power - globally.

As soon as sex becomes discernable in the womb of the mother, female biology and its cultural 'lesser worth' leads to different fates for females from males.

Eg-
Selective abortion
Infanticide
Child abuse/rape
FGM
Child marriage
Period stigma and shame
Denial of education & domestic servitude
Body shaming - particularly breasts, vulva, vagina, female fat distribution
Breast ironing
Prostitution and trafficking
Forced pregnancy
Forced abortion
Pregnancy health issues
Injury and death in childbirth
So-called 'honour crimes'
Domestic violence
Sexual harassment/assault/rape
Political, public career damaging hiatus during motherhood
Glass ceiling
Menopause
'Invisible' age

And for those deemed 'better' for being born male there is this:

Male toys, games and socialisation into controlling and dominating their environment and everything in it (whether this be with engineering, guns or strategy).
Males socialised to see women as either 'lesser' skivvies or etherial 'mother Goddesses'.
Cultural normalising male domination/control of women
Porn eroticising that domination and control.
Males dominating politics & business.
Male higher pay
Male assumed competence
Male exploitation of women's unpaid labour

And so on.

Being able to speak clearly, using clear and accurate language about:
the sexes,
sex roles,
stereotypes around sex roles
and the social/cultural systems and hierachies that frame the hierarchy between men and women is absolutely essential for any meaningful analysis, communication or understanding about how our sex affects our lives.

We need to be able to talk about sex.
Accurately.

Some people wish it were possible to change biological sex - but it is not possible. We are stuck with our sex from conception.

When we are not allowed to name the differences in sex, then we aren't allowed to speak clearly and accurately about sex, sexism or sexed beliefs and behaviours.

Naming reality is our right.

If some people are invested in wishing reality is wrong and feel entitled to enforce all other people to pretend their wish is true because their potentially hurt feelings are more important than someone elses right to talk about what is real, then those people are self-centred and their demands are not reasonable.

This issue is much bigger than them.

I am Spartacus.

No-one should be able to change their sex by simply declaring that they want to. If they go the whole way and have a complete operation, that's a different matter, but people cannot simply change sex by self-iding.

And I am a woman, not this nonsense 'cis'.
That should be classed as a hate crime.

BusyBoysMum maybe we can meet up and go in groups, opinions in groups might be safer.

As long as it’s not this damn hill. 😀

Sex matters.

I am still Spartacus.

Maybe if we all dye out hair blue we'll blend in better? Or that sort of faded turquoise color that seems to be popular at the moment.

It'd be a bit odd if most members of a parenting website didn't understand the biological reality of male and female.

I'm still Spartacus too.

I've got a linguistics degree you know. So if I were a linguistic prescriptivist I ought to be saying that actually I'm Spartaca, being, you know, female. However, I was strictly taught that the meaning of words is not prescribed, but agreed by members of a speech community; and I'm damned if I'm going to make an exception for the word "woman". Seeing as I was one last time I looked.

AngryAttackKittens - glad to see you're still here

The day MN loses it's attack kittens, will be the beginning of the end.

Still Spartacus. Mumsnet won't need to ban me if they have silly restrictions on what people can say, as I won't be here to ban. So dying on the hill doesn't have much resonance for me, but if we want to put it that way, fine. It isn't clear precisely what MNHQ will and won't permit people to say, and that's half the trouble. It certainly sounds as though someone in the moderating team is acting more to stop posters saying anything that may offend anyone than is compatible with Justine's claim that MN would defend civil debate. Some of the things people say in civil debate may, however civilly expressed, offend some people. That's OK. There is no right not to be offended, and it has to be permissible to be able to say things that many, even most, people disagree with, otherwise we have no debate.

Can I just reiterate here that nobody wants to have a go at Mumsnet, everyone is delighted that Justine stood up for the concept of free speech, and we all want this space to stay open. What's being objected to is the idea that we ought to be self-censoring to the point where we're no longer able to communicate clearly and effectively, or forcing ourselves to use language that we fundamentally disagree with.

Totally agree with the OP.

Not all trans-women are biologically male. Some are intersex too but because they of the way they look, they also make their home in trans + queer communities. :)

Lovely to have you on board with GD, it's hard. We know we can never be the sex we identify as, it's just that there's just no treatment available that works. It causes big problems in society, I wish there were easy answers.

Everyone needs their own spaces to feel safe and have a sense of community. GD is real and transwomen need spaces to define themselves away from the transgender "umbrella".

@HairyBallTheorem so eloquently put! I agree with you 100%.

I am also Spartacus. I won't call a man she, or a woman he.

I accept trans people need their own rights and to be free from abuse, but I will never accept women's rights being eroded for trans people.

I'm grateful to Mumsnet for letting us have our voice here, but I'm prepared to be banned if Mumsnet start on the trans bandwagon.

It seems odd for an organization to discriminate against women in an effort to prevent giving the impression that they discriminate against transgender identified males.

I am Spartacus