Will society accept transwomen ARE women in future generations?

[interestingdebatetoday]

Today I debated with a young woman I adore. I'm in my 30's, her in her 20's. She attended uni in a very liberal city and has studied psychology. Definitely armed to hold an opinion.

We disagree currently on several of the current topics re trans. I personally hold what's probably the norm on the feminist boards of mumsnet in my views.

It made me wonder though - she claims not to feel women are really impacted, uses unisex bathrooms as a norm, and obviously has been socialised to not find an issue in accepting transwomen as women. Is it possible that actually society will progress in a way that her generation down simply won't have the issues which I feel exist when trying to include transwomen AS women?

Can women be educated/socialised to a place over time where several generations on - we will be the old women with outdated beliefs and the world simply isn't bothered about the things which we were?

It has to go one way or the other really doesn't it? Either a big u turn and the idea that transwomen ARE women becomes laughable and delusional is mainstream and acceptable (as many of us might feel on the boards) OR transwomen ARE women and we were the ones who were wrong

It made me wonder... I was really suprised tbh. 10 years later made a huge difference to whether we felt our rights were under attack...

One question. Are either of you mothers, or have many in your peer group who are?

I'm a mother. She isn't yet.

I have this fear most of the time, 'are we the baddies' but then I think rationally and I see the unfairness of trans women competing against women in sport, taking awards from women and medicalising children and I know we are not wrong to question this.

I do think age has a big impact on my thinking - I probably would have thought the same in my teens/20s as I really didn't have experience of the world and the injustice of how women and girls are treated from a wider perspective.

So how does she explain away the basic fact that bio women (cis women, whatever you want to call it) have XX chromosomes, and men have XY chromosomes? Transwoman tend to be taller, stronger with big hands and feet (a result of those chromosomes). They also tend to be more dominant and aggressive (as seen on a vid that someone on here put up a few days ago).

And yes, as pp has alluded to - I think becoming a mother has changed my perspective massively.

I wonder if there'll be a period of time where there will be a shallow general belief that TWAW.
I can't believe that anyone will genuinely believe it though, as it'll still be females who get pregnant and all the crap that goes with that, females at higher risk of rape and domestic violence, females that are at risk of cervical cancer, males who are at risk of prostate cancer, males who commit the vast majority of violent and sexual crime etc.
There will then come a time when women and girls realise they are being fucked over and will have to fight for their rights again.

I don't think she does explain it away... I think she genuinely has no issues with whatever your chromosomes are - you can be a woman

I disagree. But I'm quite fascinated with her non issue, which I believe is probably typical of many of her peers

Might link her to the thread but she might be worn out as I've sent her several videos and links to consider and see if she still holds her opinion. She may...

I first started using Mumsnet when I became a Mother in 2013. I noticed threads from this board popping up. I'm a liberal by nature and honestly my first thought was that you were all a bunch of horrible transphobes
It took a long time of reading and learning to understand the issues. Being a Mother has certainly altered my perceptions as well.
Having spoken to other women about this, I think there's a lot of us (especially from my generation) that start from the position of the liberal just wanting to be 'nice' and inclusive to actually being horrified at how women are being trampled on.

She is an incredibly nice person but I think I would be too dismissive to say that she simply doesn't get it. Although not a mother... she's surrounded by many and certainly pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing are topics she's personally witnessed throughout her life for people close to her. More than your average young woman due to her life prior to going to uni.

Maybe there will be a time when the prevailing culture presses TWAW as a general diffused orthodoxy. It is not at all beyond the realms of possibility given the success of the Genderist religion so far.

But the part of humanity born with a vagina will still be the one overwhelmingly facing disadvantage, oppression and violence from their birth to their death, whatever name we are permitted to keep for ourselves, and however many of our number submit willingly to these things.

Everyone knows how this works. Gender is a tool of oppression and always will be. You either demolish it, or you put a pretty new name ribbon on it and keep women where the patriarchy thinks they belong.

Taking the feminist element out of it- perhaps in your friends world with like minded peers, possibly, but in areas such as where I currently work- a working class, predominantly catholic area of Northern Ireland, the vast majority of people simply will not recognise trans people as women. And I am sure it will be the same in many other places across the UK. It would take a huge cultural shift.

I think that's just it - what if actually society moves to a place where there is no male and female? There is no gender?

Can it EVER do that? I found myself wondering if it would come to accept that in time today

I don't think there'll ever be no male or female, but I suspect if the gender agenda wins there will be a gradual shuffling of who are the most important women and men, and of course it won't be those born with XX chromosomes.

Listen- I can’t eveb get dads in the area I work in to come along to a ‘dads and me’ group to play with their children as that’s a woman’s role. Getting them to see a transsexual as an actual woman??? Not a chance. The defined gender roles are unlikely to change any time soon to that level. And interestingly- many of the women in the area aren’t that keen either.

It's a middle-class religion, some may accept TWAW.

The working-class laugh and are clueless they don't understand the trans activists or Prof feminists, they won't accept TWAW.

Exactly. It just isn’t important to many people.

There is never going to be a time where there is no male or female. Except when the sun expands and devours everything or however the world ends.

There is a hopeful possibility when our physical reality of male and female will not be extrapolated into a system of 'gender' that insists a female human must look a certain way, behave a certain way, feel certain things, and vice versa for a male human.

We will acknowledge that our physical differences are differences that affect specific things that require accommodations, and that will be as far as it goes - everything else; who we love, what we like, how we express ourselves, what we do to earn a living, will be dependent only on other factors like economics etc, not what genitals we were born with.

I watched an old TOTP from the 80s a few weeks ago and it really shocked me. I hadn't realised how over time we had reverted to such male/female stereotype roles. There are no modern Boy Georges, you don't see effeminate men any more, there are a few women still who are not feminine but even then this whole trans-identity thing is cited (I'm thinking Christine and the Queen). 30 years ago there wasn't this concept of men being actually women or being born in the wrong body, not as a publicly acceptable thing. I am sure that part of the rise of trans identity and activism is the perceived lack of alternatives. I feel like there was a notion of gender fluidity alongside rigid sex identity but that we have lost the fluidity and I wonder why.

In many ways we have moved to a more tolerant society, life for women and for homosexuals is significantly better now than it was 30 years ago but gender identity and really identity politics generally seems to have taken a real backwards step.

I think that young people are more conservative than the last generation, maybe it's the poor economic situation that has driven it. Years gone past you could survive on the dole and university was free, maybe that has driven a generation away from creative outlets and driven up mental health issues. Maybe it is just a temporary backlash against the way the world was.

I'm only 39 but I feel old! With my believing that women are born and not made, that pubic hair is fine to own, saw an article on The Pool last week about cultural appropriation on Instagram that I failed to understand. I used to be 'right on'. There is a part of me that's sure I still am, it's just a few mad people with very loud voices on social media. Maybe it's the Russian bots ?

Definitely time for bed.

If that actually happened (it won’t any time soon) then most of our objections would dissolve. We would live in a world where people weren’t subjected to sexual violence and weren't disadvantaged because of their sex. There would be no need for statistics on how many women were assaulted or killed or who did it to them. Unless you are reproducing or being treated for sex-specific medical reasons, it won’t matter whether you are a man or a woman.

You know, the sort of world feminists have been asking for for umpteen years.

But if gender disappears, how can transgender exist?

I think that's just it - what if actually society moves to a place where there is no male and female?

There will always be two distinct varieties of human, male and female because the difference is obvious, so obvious that a two year old can tell.

A lot of us though are cross at our children being taught that you CAN change your sex from the one you were born as though

But supposing our children DO accept what they are being taught despite our efforts

And the future generations are wholly accepting of that because of their education (will they?)

Then it won't be a middle class religion or debate... all classes, religions, walks of life will be thinking that way... won't they?

Or is there something that just won't ever let society eventually agree to this?

This is an interesting thought. I disagree with much of the gender critical stuff, but I also don’t believe it to be transphobic to, for instance, discuss or campaign about things that only affect biological women, like periods and childbirth. I dont believe trans women have the same experience as natal women (but I don’t believe they have the same experience as men either, as they have likely spent a large portion of their life not feeling like a man). I don’t think they should be placed in women’s prisons as a matter of course - there should be a thorough risk assessment and sex criminals should not have that option.

Having said that, I have no issue with them living as women and using facilities like toilets and changing rooms and in my peer group I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s a problem to have them in those spaces. We are mid twenties to mid thirties. My mum (late 60s) is also unbothered by the thought of trans women in women’s facilities. What actually bothers me (and some of my friends) more, is the non-binary gang, who appear to want to pick and choose what facilities to use based on what gender they are that day. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing in terms of age as much as it is how far people are rooted in traditional ideas

Reality? I mean, humans don't change sex. We just don't, and however many voices tell someone we do, the simple fact is that the only thing that happens that even comes close is that people are put through expensive medical interventions and cosmetic surgical procedures to create a facsimile of the opposite sex.

That's never going to a be thing that the vast bulk of humanity accepts as normative, unless we really are sleepwalking into a worldwide dystopia of epic sci fi proportions.

• A lot of us though are cross at our children being taught that you CAN change your sex from the one you were born as though But supposing our children DO accept what they are being taught despite our efforts *

It's not a matter of opinion or belief. Sex evolved for one purpose - reproduction. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species of mammal, and mammals simply can't change sex.

You can't believe TWAW without making the word, the concept 'woman' devoid of real meaning.

BlackForestCake

Would be a lovely world to live in!

If men were not seen as "men" (or women as "women") would men still have the tendency for violence in the same way? Is that biological fact or social conditioning that makes men more likely to be violent?

Animals I presume don't know they are male or female but act on what their biology makes them behave like? (Rather than being socially conditioned to act male or female)