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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Your peaktrans moment for today! Top this if you can.

388 replies

Ritzsaltedcrackers · 25/04/2018 13:21

A woman was thrown out of a FB feminist group for challenging the idea that transwomen get periods.

apparently they DO get periods just without the small aspect of bleeding.

She was told that she was minimising transwomen's periods.

www.facebook.com/beth.rep/posts/10216741083464856

OP posts:
Gileswithachainsaw · 25/04/2018 14:29

author

Just how far should the lie be taken?

Would you misgender your friends if it was medically necessary?

Does truth really not matter?

TERFragetteCity · 25/04/2018 14:32

Why all this misgendering? Please just show people respect.

Correct sexing. Why don't these men show [all] women respect by stopping pretending to have periods for sympathy?

TransAuthor · 25/04/2018 14:32

You can wriggle and worm around all you like, Uterati, but it doesn't change the fact that deliberately disrespecting a person's chosen identity and using the wrong pronouns is gonna hurt them.

It'd be like if I was your mum and you got married to a person I hated and started using their surname. My letters to you would be addressed to your maiden name and every time you received a Christmas card, you'd feel like your life choices were being disrespected. It would eat away at you over time and you'd feel less than equal to everyone else who your mum respected their marriage.

Disagree with what you want, it's your life. Just have the decency to use the right pronouns, it takes zero effort on your part and it shows you enter the debate with respect for other humans.

Oswin · 25/04/2018 14:33

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Ardant · 25/04/2018 14:35

PLEASE don't feed antagonistic posts too much! They go high we go low and all.

I do sometimes wonder if there are trolls in the trans community out to harm that cause. (That or really deeply unwell people?)

MissTeri · 25/04/2018 14:36

fae/faer? someone suggests they are 'fairy pronouns'? surely not? Does this person identify as a fairy? Genuine question BTW.

Bowlofbabelfish · 25/04/2018 14:37

Deliberately using the wrong pronoun is an act of violence.

No it’s not. Come on now. It may be rude in certain circumstances. It’s not violence. Violence is stuff like...oh I dunno just grasping for examples here...say punching a woman to the ground at speakers corner. That would be violence. One can have the implied threat of violence too. Say a group of masked men blocking a woman from entering a room.

Don’t minimise violence because that really is disrespectful.

And saying that people who just disagree with you are violent is childish. It’s like a toddler tantrum. Engage with the argument, don’t shut it down with claims of violence

CharlieParley · 25/04/2018 14:38

Thank you for posting this latest. Because it led me to this powerful statement by RadFemFatale:

"Men do not lose their power by changing their clothing, or wearing makeup. To imply that male privilege is dependent on how men feel about their bodies and how they choose to decorate them is the same as saying that women can change our status in patriarchy by altering our looks.

It's an inverted argument. Men who adopt femininity claim to be oppressed because they get a small dose of what women experience on a daily basis, compounded by law, by violence, by history.

Somewhat ironically, males who claim a desire to be treated "like a woman" then declare they are more oppressed than women, because in the process they are assaulted or killed.

It begs the question: What, exactly, do they think being "treated like a woman" means, if not an altogether dangerous way to be in a patriarchal society? Being treated like a woman inherently means being excluded, or being harmed, or objectified.

By all evidence, they must think it means the latter: objectification is the end goal for men who misappropriate our existence. And possibly, if we're optimistic, they hope that being treated like a woman means they can gossip about fashion with women, sharing a bathroom without men, and other "privileges".

Not the stark reality of existing in a female body.

When men ask to be treated like women, and then experience violence, they say they are more oppressed than women.
In every aspect men presume their lives and experiences to be the default, carrying more weight, even to the extent that when they pretend to be us, their pain matters more. They adopt our identities and still declare themselves the victims of the system that granted them the privilege to appropriate us.

When men accuse women of being exclusionary, they are entirely ignorant to the past 6,000 years of history which, through men, excluded women.

Women should not feel guilty about calling a man what he is. We have a history and culture of our own. Women are the excluded sex. They burned her, enslaved her, experimented on her, locked her in asylums, bound her feet, broke her body and erased her name.

Men don't want a part of that reality. They only want to be objectified. To be told they are sexy.

The fantasy they project onto women is the image they have become jealous of, like Narcissus reflecting back on a pool of water, with mirrors all around.

They are in love with this fantasy they create. It's a double mirror. Men who self-objectify are not identifying with women at all, but his own projection of us, so that we are twice removed: "cis women", doubly othered, and the man who falls in love with the false image, doubly removed from himself and the world. No wonder there is so much anger in this group. Men who call themselves women already hate their bodies and that insecurity is unleashed onto women.

Women are the excluded sex.
Recognize. No male is entitled to women's attention, or identity."

TheUterati · 25/04/2018 14:40

Author
Not wriggling. Statement of facts.

Hurt feelings, whether these are reasonable or not, do not trump facts, and do not trump my right to refer to the facts correctly.

No. Lying and stating that a man is a woman is not decency. It is a lie. To bully people into participating in this lie is indecent and shows no respect.

Out of interest, where does the lie end for you? Is is correct to participate in Rachel Dolezal's delusion and call her a Black African American woman? Is that decent? Does that show respect?

TheUterati · 25/04/2018 14:41

And BTW I am Jewish, so you have mis-religioned me.

Is this literal violence and antisemitism that you have committed?

NowtSalamander · 25/04/2018 14:44

I’m just going to engage with the comparison given. My children and I have my “maiden” name. Pretty much everyone who writes to them or me ever addresses them with my husband’s surname. I find this pretty annoying but the idea that it would feel like “actual violence” or that it would somehow demean me as a person is simply not true.

As a woman, I am utterly used to having my personal choices ignored in favour of patriarchal preconceptions.

The fact that I’m engaging with a historical relic of patriarchy and not trying to deny biological reality also relevant but not something I’m
concentrating on at this moment.

Toomanybourbons · 25/04/2018 14:46

Trans, I do see your point, but the fact is we are being told by using someone's preferred pronouns that we have to lie. I do not for one moment accept or believe that the person on that post claiming to have periods is a woman.

Why should I be compelled to lie and pretend that I do, just to be nice? I'm sorry, but it's a slippery slope. Men are colonising womanhood. Forcing women to pretend men are women is just the start and many of are standing up and refusing to collude and insisting on speaking the truth amidst the collective madness.

TransAuthor · 25/04/2018 14:52

So you're saying that sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will never hurt me?

And then claiming the Powerful Trans Lobby™ is the ones bullying you into not disrespecting them by using the correct pronoun?

And no, I don't think Dolezal was showing respect at all. But bringing that into this discussion is another transphobic dogwhistle phrase.

Teacuphiccup · 25/04/2018 14:54

What is biological essentialism and how is it transphobic?
I thought it meant that you didn’t believe you could change sex.

TransAuthor · 25/04/2018 14:57

Bourbons - Why should you be compelled to pretend that you do? Respect for other humans. I'm an atheist but I respect people who believe in God so I don't go rub my beliefs in their faces. I treat them with dignity.

Teacuphiccup · 25/04/2018 14:59

By referring to that person as a ‘she’ then it muddies the conversation completely, the reason they can’t have a period is because they are Male, full stop.
It’s a sleight of hand to make everyone refer to the person as ‘she’ because then you aren’t able to say what’s actually going on, and that is a male bodied person is claiming that they are having periods.

I understand that it might be distressing for someone to hear themselves referred to as Male, but the fact is they have a male body and when talking about biological functions it’s important to say when someone is male or female if the biological functions are sex specific.

Toomanybourbons · 25/04/2018 14:59

So I should tell lies to respect other humans? Should I pretend I believe in God when speaking to Christians? Should I pretend I believe the earth is flat when speaking to flat earthers?

And respect works both ways. I see no respect for women and our rights, spaces, and boundaries coming from the trans community. Only threats, insults and violence.

CharlieParley · 25/04/2018 15:01

NowtSalamander Hah, I get that too as I've kept my name. Funny thing is, sometimes people call DH Mr CharlieParley and when they realise their mistake they apologise. They'd never dream of apologising to me.

And I've been with my DH for over 20+ yrs but even the family can't be bothered. Have not had a single year, not one, where the extended family has spelled or pronounced my name right. Christmas cards are an absolute delight. And they all spell it in their own special way.

I shall inform them in my cards* this year that they are literally committing violence.

*always send mine first hoping if they have a recent reference they'll get it right

Merrykegs · 25/04/2018 15:03

I don't see why we should respect their pronouns out of courtesy when they have been so aggressive and vicious.

I don't understand what faer means anyway. They aren't fairies because faeries don't have periods either.

grandplans · 25/04/2018 15:05

@TransAuthor Deliberately using the wrong pronoun is an act of violence

Please explain how it is an act of violence? Not how it is unkind, but how it is actually violence?

Bowlofbabelfish · 25/04/2018 15:05

I will respect my religious friends by not disparaging them for their religion and by standing up for their rights to hold that opinion without censure in a secular society.

At the same time, I reserve the right to criticise the ideology itself in general debate in as robust terms as I wish.

There is a huge difference between discrimination against someone because they are religious (which is illegal and immoral) and criticising a religion as an idea. (Which is an essential right in a free society.)

So if I fire Sarah for being Christian I’m quite rightly going to expect the law to knock on the door. If I say I have serious problems with how fundamental Christianity treats women for example then that’s NOT breaching any ethical or legal boundary.

What you’re asking us to do by saying we believe men are women Is akin to banning criticism of an ideology.

I support transwomen in their legal protections to not be discriminated against because of their transwomenhood. Just like I support my religious friends in not being discriminated against in their beliefs.

I do not, and will not, give up my right to criticise the underlying ideologies underlying either religion or the transactivist movement.

No civilised society legislates belief.

rocketpocket · 25/04/2018 15:05

"I'm an atheist but I respect people who believe in God so I don't go rub my beliefs in their faces. I treat them with dignity."

This is not the same thing. The same thing would be those Christians saying "isn't God wonderful and heaven a lovely place?" And you being forced, against your belief to say "oh yes. I believe wholeheartedly in god and he is fantastic and heaven is just brilliant!"

MissTeri · 25/04/2018 15:06

I don't understand what faer means anyway. They aren't fairies because faeries don't have periods either. - Careful. You're one step away from claiming fairies don't exist and then we'll really see some blood shed I'm sure!! Wink

Tessa1476 · 25/04/2018 15:07

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rocketpocket · 25/04/2018 15:11

Excellent post bowl!