Please can someone who thinks that TWAW..

[BertrandRussell]

...explain to me the intellectual process that got you there? I promise -and as far as I can I promise on behalf of other people - not to challenge or argue and only ask clarification questuons. I just want to understand, even if I don't agree.

Hang on, I'll try and give you something to work with.

Room full of people, I pick out all the women. Truth is I don't know what's in their pants or what chromosomes they have, you might say I do because someone's dog always barks at their brothers or some such, but the bare truth is that I don't.

Same room of people, I ask people to tell me whether or not they're a woman. Those declaring themselves women may or may not be the same people I thought were women, and whilst they certainly know better than I do what's in their pants, we're not going to be asking them to prove it any time soon.

So which of them are women? The ones I've identified who also identify themselves as women, they're the easy ones, right? Because as long as we're not checking (and in almost every situation where the word is used, we don't) then that is all we have to go on. Because whilst woman may usually refer to an adult human female, what we actually use it to mean is those we both TAKE to be adult human females, and who also confirm that they ARE adult human females. Regardless of their chromosomes. THAT is what the word means. It is a person who both takes themselves to be and is taken by others to be a woman.

You can be frustrated if you think that's circular, or fluffy, or whatever you like, but you have to acknowledge that "woman" in everyday life is not used to describe those with the confirmed characteristic of being of the female sex. It just isn't. And a word's definition should describe how it is ACTUALLY USED by people, not dictate how it should be. A dictionary won't go into this much detail because that is not the purpose of the dictionary, but the way we actually use the word of course takes precedence.

Now what of those people who either I identify as women but who don't themselves, or indeed the other way round? Given that no proof is being asked for or offered, traditionally the self-declaration of the individual is given more precedence as they at least know what's in their pants. And actually were it a situation where it really mattered what their biology was there would usually be a burden of proof. In everyday situations there is not.

But what if I still disagree that they're a woman? Well, the bottom line is they can be a woman in their eyes and not in mine. Particularly if within society as a whole I am in the minority thinking they're not a woman. Because then to most people they satisfy the criteria of both identifying themselves and being identified by others as a woman. Frankly, as long as it is a situation where no proof is required, a woman is someone who both declares they are one and who society accepts as one, regardless of the assertion of any other individual.

Hope that helps! Got a sporting event to get ready for now but maybe back in the evening :)

I'm afraid the "The lovely transwomen I know have had a hard time so I call them women" view doesn't actually answer the question.

I suppose I see it as there being more than one definition of what a woman is - one relates to chromosomes and genitalia and another that relates to gender identity.
To me, this is the crux of it. Two things that are entirely unrelated are being lumped together as 'woman'. A woman is defined by biology. Having a feminine gender identity doesn't make you a woman, it makes you feminine.

Sorry, Rat - that's nonsense. The actuality of why women are oppressed means agreeing that people who 'identify' as women are women is illogical and harmful to women.

I can accept people's beliefs about themselves. People believe all sorts of things about themselves:

That they are ugly
That the Lord speaks to them
That they are fat
That they are more intelligent than me
That they are a woman
That they look good in that dress

And most of the time it's neither here nor there. Their belief does not affect me; it's no skin off my nose. (Sometimes it hurts me to see people whose beliefs hurt them). But it matters to me when it effects a change in the Law that codifies a belief int 'facts' that do affect me.

Short version = yes, it's a social construct. Undeniably.

Vicky the social construction of a concept has nothing to do with the way women are oppressed. That's like saying the way we add up numbers can't be right because it doesn't account for the colour of the beans we're counting.

“ I suppose I see it as there being more than one definition of what a woman is”

I think this is the point I don’t understand. How did you get there? Why is someone born male, but more comfortable with female gender stereotypes a woman, not a gender non conforming man?

No Rat that doesn’t work. Just because you can’t always tell the difference between a male animal and a female animal doesn’t mean they are not definitively different things. Facts exist. Words exist to name factual things. Men do not become women.

By all means agree that some people think they might be other than what they actually are. And there might be reasons to be kind to them about that. But that doesn’t mean the facts have changed and that’s what Bert was asking.

I think 'the lovely transwomen I know have a hard time so I agree with them" Is just an example of me being kind and going along with stuff so as not to hurt them. Or less, benignly, because there might be a confrontation. Women are good at that. We do that from childhood.

No one ever explains their stance properly and instead write reams and reams of wokeness because otherwise they'd have to actually admit the truth. Which is no, tw aren't women because they are men. If they are women, why do they need to trans?

It is literally that simple and factual and truthful.

I read your answer as woman being how you present yourself to the world at large RatRolyPoly, but it would really help me to understand your view if you could explain how a person born with XY chromosomes is the same as me, who was born with XX chromosomes - regardless of what either of us are wearing.

I'm not saying facts don't exist right, I'm saying that quite obviously they aren't the definitive thing on which we ascribe the word "woman".

Surely the problem with the ‘asking a roomful of people’ example is that it doesn’t allow for the fact that (a) people can be mistaken about themselves and (b) people can lie about themselves.

chicken

Yes. And I believe that's what we are dealing with

IW: Mistaken about self. Really upset when she butts against people who disagree with IW

PB: Lies about self. Really upset when he butts against people who try and stop him

ADastardlyThing excellent point and one I've not heard before that if they ARE a woman then why do they needs to trans. Not sure that can ever be answered really except in some non-sensical way along the lines of they need to look more feminine in order to pass the test of what society deems is feminine which is just feeding into the gender stereotypes. It just further highlights that it's all bollocks.

Both: Haven't thought beyond themselves. Haven't thought about women. Women really insulted by that, because on the whole, women are socialised to care as much about others, of not more, than themselves. And here it is; being exploited

Peaked tbf I've heard it raised a lot on here on other threads but the point tends to get lost because, shock, its never answered

Because it can't be answered without admitting what we all know, they aren't women.

"Everyone knows what a woman is, we all came out of one."

What an interesting thread. I’d be interested to know why the fight for twaw is being framed as against some feminists by tra because I would expect predominantly the people giving tw an actual hard time in real life have never had a feminist thought in their lives.

Also I can see how in 2018 grc enables someone to have official external validation of their identity and that would help someone with how they feel about themselves. I don’t see how it protects from harm though as again, the people who go round life physically and verbally abusing people or ignoring employment rights etc aren’t going to give a shit about a piece of paper.

Golden

Yes. That is indeed interesting. And women are steadily coming to the conclusion that the stated aim to be seen as women is to piss all over women. It's just misogyny

If you had some beans of differing sizes, shapes and colours, you could sort them by size, shape or colour. Rat's sorting uses one criteria, Bert's another.

The thing about sex is that it is not a feeling or an identity, it is an objective fact. It doesn't matter if you can tell someone's sex by looking at them or not, their sex remains constant. It always will.

It is very difficult to debate this because people stick tend not to engage with sex as a category. Any remotely coherent argument about TWAW only holds together if sex and gender are conflated or sex ignored. Nobody can argue coherently about people changing sex, there being a third sex, sex being fluid etc. Cognitive dissonance is kept at bay by focusing on the affective or the visible not biological facts.

An honest answer, going back to the bean analogy, would be, I refuse to sort the beans by colour, I only sort them by size and shape. I think size if ultimately more important and using colour is hurtful/excluding

you have to acknowledge that "woman" in everyday life is not used to describe those with the confirmed characteristic of being of the female sex. It just isn't.

I’m also confused about this bit. How do we know this for sure? Isn’t it possible that the vast majority of people might be using the biological definition of woman every time they use the word?

And, don't forget there are many conditions and diseases that have to be treated differently for men and women.

If TWAW, how would one expect them to be treated? Using the process for men? Or women?

If TWAW, would one expect them to get cervical cancer? PCOS? Uterine fibroids? Bartholins cysts?

If TWAW, would you expect them to potentially harbour the HPV virus in their cervix? Or penis?

If TWAW would they require the pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy?

Rat- I realize that this is reductio ad absurdam- but do you think that people can identify as anything they want to? If not, why not?

And in your example of the room full of people, what leads a person born a man to decide that he is actually a woman?

Do I, a person born a woman, have any right to query someone who says they are also a woman? It’s not something I would do at a drinks party, obviously, but in other circumstances?

I can’t help feeling that the TRAs have rather shot themselves in the foot with this TWAW nonsense.
If they had simply gone with the truth - that they’re men who are deeply unhappy with the male gender stereotype forced on them by our patriarchial society, and who wish to present as a female gender stereotype instead, they could have quite happily gone around in their dresses and heels, been accepted as effeminate men, used male facilities etc. No problem.
But to try and insist that they’re actually, biological women, in the face of all the factual evidence to the contrary, to try and force their way into women’s private spaces, to compromise women’s safety and dignity, to hold the door open for a raft of rapists, voyeurs and paedophiles to follow them in - that is bound to cause anger and refusal from any sane woman.

They probably are chicken, but not on account of having checked. Ultimately not one single one of us knows the sex of the people we call man or woman with any certainty. The gender binary and secondary sex characteristics contribute to our assertion, but we could never know if everyone we've ever taken to be a woman has been female. Or that anyone we've ever taken to be a man hasn't been.