"I feel like a woman"

[pearsapplesbananas]

I am a transgender woman. The following doesn't in any way pretend to be a universal account of all trans women's experiences and thoughts, just mine.

When I say "I feel like a woman" to somebody, what I mean is:

I wish I was born in a female body. I wish I had a female reproductive system, and that I could carry a child. Every time I look into the mirror, I want to smash my face against it. Every time I look at a "normal" family, my heart sinks, because I will likely never get to have that. Hormones make me feel less bad. Besides easing my physical dysphoria, they have also important psychological effects (like some women experience with their cycles). They are a tool that helps me deal with my… bad luck at birth.

But I'm slowly starting to empower myself. Coming out of this endless spiral of self-disgust and self-pity. I might be wrong but, from what I read, it seems like there is a discussion framed as a dichotomy: that giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights. Well, I wouldn't see how, and of course, I wouldn't want it to be.

As a consequence, both sides of the discussion attack each other. Often, with what I consider cruelty, inhumanity and viciousness, lacking the most basic empathy. It's as if we all left our humanity at home, for our families and loved ones, and were fighting as animals against each other.

I think both sides could benefit from working together, we have many things to teach one another and many fights in common. For example, better healthcare. I read a post on this forum, about the access to laser by women with PCOS. In all honesty, I don't think a single transgender woman would oppose this. In fact, it's something that I (and many others) would advocate for. Similarly, there are many other topics framed as dichotomies that would more likely be solved if they weren't.

The only people benefiting from all this is people who regard women and transgender people as lesser than.

**As a consequence, both sides of the discussion attack each other. Often, with what I consider cruelty, inhumanity and viciousness, lacking the most basic empathy. It's as if we all left our humanity at home, for our families and loved ones, and were fighting as animals against each other.

I appreciate your post but I must pull you up on this paragraph. The viciousness you describe is not on both sides it is 99% one sided from the TRA's.

I’ve never attacked anyone in my life, either verbally or any other way.
Women have been asking for intelligent , open dialogue, to no avail.

Refusing to pretend that you believe things that are objectively not true is not viciousness. It's not feminists sending rape and death threats to the people who we disagree with or telling them to enjoy their erasure.

I don't think it is vicious or cruel to say you are a trans identified male who wishes he was a woman. You are not a woman however and I am sorry that this distresses you to such a degree that you feel like self harming.

You are aware that current transgender activism hates you as truscum for acknowledging that you have dysphoria, that you ‘wish’ to be a woman rather than that you ‘are’ a woman and that you want better access to services to support you?

The part where you talk about your own feelings re yourself is one of the arguments that feminists have been making about how harmful the kind of TRA that has been given attention by politicians is to transsexuals (who have dysphoria) as well as how harmful self ID could be to women.

No feminist hates trans women.

Feminists want the implications of self ID on women to be taken into account and women and women’s groups to be listened to about the various issues created by replacing sex with gender and allowing people to self ID.

Virtually ALL the feminists making these arguments also fall into what the majority of organisations, such as stonewall etc, now say is ‘the trans umbrella’ in that we reject the concept of gender.

Such a shame you don't say 'I feel like a transwoman' and be genuinely happy with that.

What's wrong with being out and proud as a transwoman? That's is the logical solution to this controversy.

Disabled athletes now have the Paralympics and Invictus Games. Those were unthinkable when I was growing up.

Maybe it's time for you to fight for your rightful place in society, as transwomen, instead of piggybacking on others.

It really is the forced teaming that's the core of the issue. Until trans women are willing to admit that they are a discrete group that's entirely separate from actual women and advocate for a role in society based on that premise then there will always be conflict, because women are being asked to accept something that just isn't true. Give us the respect of allowing us to define our own boundaries and then maybe we can work together.

Sounds awful pears, and I totally agree that people that support neither trans nor women’s rights are benefitting most from this debate, which is a sad state of affairs.

I’m hopeful that self id could be designed and implemented with protections for women’s rights, the worry is that it won’t be.

Often, with what I consider cruelty, inhumanity and viciousness, lacking the most basic empathy.

Show me just one tweet, coming from a radical feminist, that says anything like 'all trans must DIAF' or 'I'll rape a trans to death' or 'I'll punch a trans in the face until unrecognisable'. I guarantee you can not. I will guarantee these threats are tweeted daily, if not hourly, towards radical feminists, and by extension, anyone gender critical. We have had that shit thrown at us for at least 8-10 years now. Yes, our patience has worn a little thin, but we still don't do that. TRAs do that, and they do it IN YOUR NAME.

I think both sides could benefit from working together, we have many things to teach one another and many fights in common

OK, so see above regarding daily threats to our well-being. But even ten years ago, TRAs were insisting that we 'centre feminism on transwomen'. Excuse me? We officially have nothing in common, if that is what TRAs bring to the table.

Believe it or not, we were rather more polite a decade ago. We actually did try to see if there was common ground, or merit to their claims. All we got back was 'DIAF' (die in a fire, for those that don't know). We quickly learned that they were nothing like women, and a shitload like men.

And here you are pears, insisting we abandon OUR fight (which is a lot more than the trans thing btw), and makey nicey with your TRA buddies to make it easier for you. Sure, you may have said it politely, but that request is straight from xy-land. You may wish to re-think your approach to get feminists to 'work for you'. Nice offer, we shall politely decline.

I don't have a problem with people who have dysmorphia. I think transgender as an umbrella term is an awful idea that gets worse if it's combined with self id.

If your in the ladies with the rest of us do you really want a man with a sexual fetish coming in?

Have you read the guardian letter from transexuals? (Their word btw, I use language that the indivduals feel comfortable with).

Your whole waffling post just reads as naive to forth and educate yourself.

I personally have no problem with your view, because you clearly understand that you are using the phrase "I feel like a woman" as a metaphor for a complex set of emotions round your bodily dysphoria and don't expect it to be taken literally. I wish you well in your search for a way of living that helps you to feel comfortable in yourself. I totally support you having legal rights which prevent you from being harassed, which allow you living accommodation and housing free from discrimination in the basis of how you present. (Barring a tiny minority of shared living spaces and occupations where biology matters).

But it's that last caveat that's the problem, isn't it? That dreadful meme on the internet, "Hunan rights aren't like cake..." has a lot to answer for. Because sometimes there is just a finite amount of resources to go round, and sometimes rights do come into direct conflict. It would be unconscionable for an employer to refuse you employment in a bookshop because you were trans. But suppose you were an HCP going for promotion to the next grade in your medical practice, a promotion which would give you responsibility (clearly stated in the job description) for carrying out cervical smears. And suppose a significant number of your patients wanted a biologically female HCP to carry out those. How do we balance those competing rights? If "sex" as opposed to "gender" disappears as a meaningful legal category, how do we even articulate those competing rights?

My quarrel is not with individuals like yourself on a personal level. It's with self ID legislation and its raft of ill thought out ramifications and unintended consequences.

Go forth * not to forth

Also the many things to teach each other thing grates. What is it that trans women think they have to teach women? If the idea is to teach us about being women, well, that's absurd. Is it about "compassion", by which you seem to mean agreeing to loosen our boundaries enough to accommodate you (but not the more extreme TRAs)? That's not compassion, but using the idea that women are required to be kind and compassionate and giving at all times to manipulate us into doing what they want is behavior that women are very familiar with from male people. The male people may not even realize how unreasonable they're being, because their socialization has primed them to expect women to sacrifice our own needs to make their lives easier.

Sorry, but feminists, especially the radical kind, don't do that. And a lot of women who wouldn't have even called themselves feminists a few years ago have reached that point too, mostly as the result of abuse from TRAs.

So, again, OP, what is it that you think women here have to learn from you?

You wanting to look/act / and even feel like a woman is not an attack on women's rights. And I do agree that the current climate is really not helping normal decent people which makes me cross.

Those transgender people who say they ARE women however do exist. Some who don't want even to make any physical changes but do want access to sex safe spaces. These are people who tend to attack anything that doesn't affect them..discussions around period poverty for example. These are people who physically intimidate women who want to discuss how self id might affect the rights of women and Transwomen.

One reason I am against self id is that I think that people like you need extra help to live your life positively, to learn how to accept yourself as you are and I think self id may make that much harder.

I think perhaps more changes need to be made to society to better suppprt transpeople, but those changes are not "treat as women under any circumstance" . self id also makes it much easier for men to abuse women's rights.

I think a lot of women here do mentally separate decent transpeople ( the ones who recognise they are not women even if they are not men and act accordingly) ( where act accordingly means as a women for 99% of the time but may mean not applying for a job at a rape centre) from the less respectful kind but the terminology is poor.

Welcome Pears. Thank you for your post and your account of your experiences. I think you are right and there is a lot to be said for putting our heads together to try and address the conflicting interests that arise in relation to single sex provision.

If I was you I would have experienced many of the responses you have received as being hostile. I think it is difficult not to absorb the frustration and anger expressed by others, even when it is not directed at you but to something you are closely tied to.

There are a range of views within gender critical posters on this board. There are some who adopt a live and let live attitude to transgender people, so long as sex and gender are completely disaggregated. Here, there is a belief that gender is socially constructed by as long as it it confined to being about identity/ beliefs and nothing to do with sex, there is no harm in people having a gender identity. I expect you will receive less robust questioning/ challenge from them.

There are other posters that believe that gender should not be given any credence at all and want to debunk any notions of gender identity. I hope these posters will pick up on the fact that your post doesn't mention gender at all. You talk about wanting to be female. Maybe using the term 'transgender' brings gender in to it, but I was struck by the absence of the term 'identity' or 'gender' in your post.

I think I have created something of a false dichotomy above as there are shades in between the above views and once that sit outside this 'spectrum'.

"giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights."

Does giving you a "decent chance to life" involve forcing women to allow you into their female-only spaces like a swimming pool's common changing area, give you the one place for women's scholarship at a university, or letting you compete against women in sports events?

If so, yes, it's a direct attack on women's rights.

Maybe you should try to define a "decent chance at life" in a way that does not try to take away the female population's very few sex-based protections.

After all, the way you explain what you mean by "I feel like a woman" in your OP sounds like you know that you would very much like to be female but you are not one.

That was one of the key phrases, wasn't it? If it means surgery being available if it's wanted and the person seeking it is an adult, or any other cosmetic changes, then sure, why not? I don't think the surgery is a very good idea if I'm being honest, but I also don't think it's really my business (I'm not a fan of plastic surgery in general, but am not trying to ban it either). If it mean changing your name and telling people that you wish you'd been born a woman, OK. If it means in any way compelling women to pretend that the transsexual person is actually a woman, whether that's in terms of the words we use or the spaces the transsexual person has access to, then that's a problem, because your right to swing your fist ends where it meets my face.

Also the many things to teach each other thing grates. What is it that trans women think they have to teach women? If the idea is to teach us about being women, well, that's absurd. Is it about "compassion", by which you seem to mean agreeing to loosen our boundaries enough to accommodate you (but not the more extreme TRAs)? That's not compassion, but using the idea that women are required to be kind and compassionate and giving at all times to manipulate us into doing what they want is behavior that women are very familiar with from male people. The male people may not even realize how unreasonable they're being, because their socialization has primed them to expect women to sacrifice our own needs to make their lives easier.

YY to this.

pearsapplesbananas - instead of coming to a feminist forum to make an appeal to our female socialisation and to tell us all about what we could do for you, why don't you try coming here and telling us about what you propose to do for us? How do you propose to help feminists in their quest to protect women's spaces and services as single sex where needed and to prevent safeguarding frameworks from being diluted?

I ask you this question because I ask it of every trans person who comes here and makes emotional appeals in a way intended to get us to centre trans issues instead of women's and parents' issues. This is a feminist forum, not a trans forum, so we centre women and girls here.

So, OP, what do you propose to do for women?

Maybe you should try to define a "decent chance at life" in a way that does not try to take away the female population's very few sex-based protections.

YY

instead of coming to a feminist forum to make an appeal to our female socialisation and to tell us all about what we could do for you, why don't you try coming here and telling us about what you propose to do for us? How do you propose to help feminists in their quest to protect women's spaces and services as single sex where needed and to prevent safeguarding frameworks from being diluted?

Absolutely.

I don't think I've seen anything on here that suggests people have left their common humanity at home. What there is is an unblinking refusal to accommodate male feelings at the expense of female needs, and it does come as a bit of a shock.

I hadn't realised how very female-socialised I was in some ways (being very unfeminine in most ways) until I started to ask myself why I was so taken aback at the blunt lack-of-niceness from women when I'd simply expect it from a good many men.

It's amazing, isn't it? Ever damn time. Trans woman hears about forum where women seem to have issues with the impact that the push for trans "rights" has on us. Trans woman decides to visit said forum and offer to explain to the women there why we're wrong about them not being women based on (insert appeals to pity here, as if the definition of "woman" was "unhappy person" or "person who finds the man box in society a poor fit for their personality and interests") and plead with us to reconsider and agree to support them (while conceding that maybe there are other trans people who we ought not to feel obligated to support).

It's like Groundhog Day.

Also...

Besides easing my physical dysphoria, they have also important psychological effects (like some women experience with their cycles)

Please explain what these physiological effects are and how they relate to what you think women experience as part of our menstrual cycles.

2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.