I am a female

[Livpool]

Hi all

Sorry if this is weird but I am sick of not being able to describe myself as a woman.
Just seen this description and so feel at a loss xx

A female / girl / woman is someone born with XX chromosomes and a vagina. All else is gender stereotypical crap.

If you menstruate you're female @narconympho. It's as simple as that and identification has bugger all to do with it. None of us chose to be female or have periods - all that was determined when sperm met egg decades ago.

@TerfTalk I don’t see this as even a trans issue, it’s just a company acknowledging that not all who menstruate are women and not all who are women menstruate, I don’t see how you can object to that? It’s just a case of a company being progressive and not acting like a cunt :~)

As someone who is non binary but AFAB I find it quite comforting.

So you're a woman then.

It literally means "adult human female". We all feel different feelings, enjoy different things and wear different clothes. You can still be unique don't worry.

@EmpressLesbianInChair

Both sex and gender are actually much more complicated than that - XX XY is massively simplified. I haven’t studied biology to that level so I don’t fully understand it, heck, scientists at the forefront of medicine don’t fully understand it, but the brain is very influential in sex/gender. The human brain isn’t really understood yet, and probably won’t be for years to come, but there is some good research exploring it.

blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/im-xy-know-sex-determination-systems-101/
(This one is interesting, shows there is more to sex than XX XY)

www.ozy.com/opinion/check-the-science-being-trans-is-not-a-choice/69726/
(This neurobiologist touches on the impact the brain has on sex, the research is still very new, but interesting)

I assume neither of you are biologists/neurobiologists so I hope you keep an open mind about these things, science is always evolving :~)

@NarcoNympho

Wow, using “cunt” as an insult on the feminism board. I honestly don’t know what to say!

Anyway, all people who have periods are women. Full stop. So the word “woman” or “female” suits this period-related product.

@NarcoNympho you've lost the argument. Even before you started using female genitalia as an insult and therefore dispelling any illusions that you might be a feminist. Time for you to bow out disgracefully.

@TerfTalk
I’m sorry, I forget not everyone swears like I do! I use them to take the power away from them but I know not everyone does. I also know that that particular word has a lot of controversy - where I’m from it’s quite common to use and I apologise but I digress.
Have a read of those articles anyway if you want, they explore biological sex quite well. Even if you feel the same after it’s good to always keep learning, after all pobody’s nerfect!
And although you may not think so, I am a feminist but I like to keep learning. If there’s any articles on your way of thinking and you want to send them my way then I’d be happy to read them. I’d like to see the issue from your perspective :~)

@DaveMyHat what’s your opinion on myself wearing a binder then? It’d be interesting to know where you stand on that matter

With respect, Narco, none of those articles - and I've spent the last twenty minutes reading through them all - does anything to support the trans ideology. Aside from conflating intersex disorders with transgenderism over and over again, all they really argue is that there is a wide variation of the levels and influence of the sex hormones, and of the degree of masculinisation and feminisation, among people of both sexes.

Well, duh. No arguments here. All that means is that the wide variety of 'types' of women and 'types' of men are completely normal, and their biological sex refers to their chromosomes/gonads and nothing else. A butch woman is no less of a woman than a very stereotypically feminine one, and the same goes for men. It's the argument of the TRAs that a person who doesn't fit into the typical mould for their 'assigned' sex may in fact not be that sex at all. Which is regressive nonsense, and it's hard to believe any intelligent person can't see that.

You might want to read around here a bit. Many of us women are highly educated in biological and physiological sciences and will continue to point out the misuse of good science.

Only women menstruate. Not all do, or ever have done, but no man ever has.

That an individual chooses not to accept their biology is absolutely fine. They are after all simply rejecting the same gender stereotypes many feminists, gender critical or not, also reject.

But they need to stop demanding that their personal preferences change material reality.

Rejoice in your gender bending self. Many/most of us gender critical women do!!!

@NarcoNympho I've got a degree in Neurophysiology if that helps. I am still aghast at women (I am talking sex here, not gender) being disregarded so as not to upset a small minority who want both male privilege and access to all things female.

I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick with the articles you've cited. Firstly, Article 1 and article 3 actually contradict each other. Science being advanced due to the participation of transgender people is mentioned but the ethics of using people from a self-selecting group is not scientifically sound and also the size of the study pool is sufficiently small to probably render the facts it's trying to put across as useless, but there is little detail about this aspect of the studies mentioned so it's impossible to tell. The second article isn't even talking primarily about humans - you can't discuss bee or platypus genetics and use this as proof that sex is more complicated than XX or XY. We are not bees of platypuses, therefore human genetics applies to us. As has been repeated pointed out many times, intersex conditions and those conditions that arise from a genetic abnormality are not related to gender identity, and are a small, unusual and frequently very complicated situations. You cannot state that someone who identifies as the opposite gender and someone who has a sex hormone condition are in any way related, and nor is there any scientific evidence that they are.

@NarcoNympho.
It's always refreshing to welcome a poster that's determined to educate all us non scientific silly women.
If yourself wants to use a binder, I have no objection but please fuck off with the myself shit. It makes you look and sound very silly,

I hope for everyone to experience self acceptance and loving the body you're in, so I find you feeling a need to wear a binder very sad. And from listening to podcasts where women discuss the very real and negative physical effects on their bodies from wearing binders, I hope you are listening to your body and not causing yourself pain. You are perfect just the way you are, without binders, surgery, lifelong medication.

Sex is not performed, it is a biological fact. Gender is a social prison of stereotypes and I reject it utterly.

@butterisbest
No need for that kind of tone! I didn’t realise this was a grammar test! I was just trying to show where my viewpoint came from, I’m happy to hear yours too. I’m always learning!

What did you think about the chinese athletes who were very masculine? I saw many gender critical people saying that they were men and it was unfair when they were in fact cis women. I found this pretty shit to read and it made me see those people as pretty sexist. I understand that it’s not everybody but the few who were outraged just because the girls were masculine seemed pretty offensive.
I know everyone is different so I’m not saying this is what you think but criticising their looks and denying they were women seemed contrary to the idea of people presenting how they wanted to.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3024504/womens-400m-runners-go-viral-chinese-social-media-looking-men

I don’t think anyone here wants a law to prevent you wearing a binder. Just not to be prosecuted for a hate crime for referring to you as your actual biological sex. Do you see the distinction?

@NarcoNympho, apologies from me. The use of that phrase really riles me but you're right, my comment was unnecessary

@AppropriateAdult
I understand that, I was just wondering what your opinion was on gender dysphoria and binding really. I’m not gonna tear anyone up, I can deal with people calling me female, I mean I haven’t even told my parents I’m NB, I know though that for some people it’s a massive trigger. I have a few friends who really struggle with being misgendered though. I just want people to be referred to as what they want really.

The problem is, Narco, that in doing so you’re asking for the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to be redefined to suit the wishes of a small minority, at the expense of the overwhelming majority. To change the definitions that these words have held since the beginnings of language, because using them about yourself is uncomfortable. You can understand why there’s pushback against that.

@DaveMyHat what’s your opinion on myself wearing a binder then? It’d be interesting to know where you stand on that matter

@NarcoNympho I think it's very sad that you are causing harm to your body in that way, I sympathise. And as a person who has struggled with an eating disorder (anorexia) for the last few years, I empathise too.

Squeezing your breasts down doesn't change your sex though. Your sex is female, I assume you're an adult, therefore you are a woman. I can feel as fat as a pregnant cow but that doesn't change the fact I am objectively underweight.

And if I put blue contacts on, my eye colour would still be green. And if I put high heels on I wouldn't be a tall woman. Even if they were really, really, really high heels. I'd be a slightly shorter than the UK average woman - with heels on.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jan/26/revealed-dozens-of-girls-subjected-to-breast-ironing-in-uk

I also think of breast ironing.

Sorry for triple posting but I've got more thoughts about the binder that I'm entirely sure how to articulate. Women have been subjecting themselves and have been subjected to various body modification practices for a long time. Stuff like breast ironing I linked to above, (extreme?) dieting, foot binding, corsets, hair dying, make up, fgm, labiaplasty, all plastic/cosmetic surgery and procedures. And now breast binding.

And most of it comes from the same place to me. Instead of loving our bodies as ours and part of us and just right as they are, we are objectified, overly sexualised, told/made to feel that we are wrong in some way. It's like a disconnect from our bodies, with social/cultural causes. Where one woman might get breast implants another binds hers. Two opposite acts, but two acts that I'd say have the same kind of root cause.

@NarcoNympho

“Cis” is banned on Mumsnet. People usually use “natal” instead as it’s much accurate and less offensive.

Or just woman/girl/female. No need for anything in front. It’s a descriptor of OUR sex and you don’t get to add anything to it without push back.