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Can women be educated/socialised to a place over time where several generations on - we will be the old women with outdated beliefs and the world simply isn't bothered about the things which we were?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

For all of those missing my point - the OP asked what would views be in generations to come.

No one is missing your point. As pp said, we don't organise society around an unlikely possible future, and neither would a tiny number of men being able to artificially have babies negate women's oppression.

True. Which is why what they are demanding cannot even be justified by citing countries where mixed saunas are the norm.

I've been going to mixed saunas quite regularly and may do so in the future. (This is possible because people there generally know to 'look away' and not to parade around. The towel is there for a reason. It is different from an all female sauna, more restrained.). This in no way invalidates the importance of single sex saunas or facilities. Having a choice is very much different from either putting up with it or staying home.

The ability to gestate outside of a woman's body would not make the possibility of gestating inside a woman's body impossible, if that makes sense.
What happens to all the 'unofficial' pregnancies that occur inside women? What happens to the women? etc.

If a uterus is no longer needed to gestate a foetus because it can be done artificially (as is already happening with babies at around the 23 week mark and this is being pushed further and further. When my son was born 24 years ago 28 weeks was considered viable so in only 1 generation we have pushed viability from 28 weeks to 23 or less) then women won't be needed for reproduction. Surely then gender stereotypes will no longer exist because much of the basis for them will disappear.

You're mistaking 'might be scientifically possible to do something' for 'what's likely to happen because it's the easiest, simplest and most cost-efficient' method.

It's been possible to get pregnant via IVF for many years now - but people seem to stick resolutely to the shag method, don't they?

being able to engineer the gstation and successful birth of a foestus at some point in the future is never going to to stop people routinely using the shag method.

In a hundred years, or more from now, views and attitudes will be entirely different to what they are now. Look at how different the world is today than 100 years ago. I doubt people during WW1 were imagining what mobile phones would be like or how they would use the internet. Developments that are commonplace now weren't even thought about 100 years ago so who knows what the future will look like.

But all changes were responses to material reality. Be it the availability of huge amounts of energy as oil, or the piles of men killed in the two world wars, which made women in the workforce a necessity. As long as the material reality of women is still such that they can be impregnated against their will, and as long as men are generally stronger than women, I can't see the power imbalance between men and women disappearing.

Mobile phone technology and gestating babies in boxes is not comparable.
Human reproduction is so unbelievably complex and we still only know a tiny fraction of how it work the chance of the baby missing something we haven’t even considered is massive. And it’s not even a question of if we can (we can’t) but also if we should. Life saving measures to protect a baby that would otherwise die is a totally different thing to willingly creating a baby without a female body to gestate it and just assuming we know everything it needs.

Isn’t it just far far far simpler to create a world where we accept that Male and female bodies have different functions but other than those primary functions everyone is free to do what the fuck they want (including ignoring their bodies primary functions).

What happens to all the 'unofficial' pregnancies that occur inside women? What happens to the women? etc.

Yes. One wonders if this has been given more than 5 seconds' thought.

being able to engineer the gstation and successful birth of a foestus at some point in the future is never going to to stop people routinely using the shag method.

Unless it is actively prohibited. I am not saying any of this will happen. It just interests me the developments that are occurring and I wonder why and to whose benefit they are? Cloning for example. If we will always have male and female everything then why do we need to clone?

I could imagine a world where it is not necessary to divide on the basis of sex because the distinct functions of the male and female are no longer needed, the biological function of procreation will be taken over. If those in charge decide that they will control the gene pool or control who can reproduce then they will prevent anyone else from doing it.

It's interesting to wonder how being freed from the potential of pregnancy would actually benefit women? Would we suddenly become equal to men in everyway? Women would have no threat to careers or risk being financially beholden to men because of having children or sacrificing their career.

I can also imagine how having no need for 2 distinct sexes will make being gender fluid much more likely.

I'm not saying any of this could or should happen. Just looking at what has happened over the last 2C and pondering how scientific advances will shape that future.

being able to engineer the gstation and successful birth of a foestus at some point in the future is never going to to stop people routinely using the shag method

Hey, never say never. Perhaps we will, in thirty years or so, vasectomize boys at birth, and if the reversal of the vasectomy doesn't work later on, we'll use needles to get the sperm directly from the testicles.

That would make IVF vastly more popular. (Though it would be better for women to stick to the simple artificial insemination)

As long as science cannot artificially create female egg cells, any means of artificial reproduction will severely affect the health of women.
The methods used to get eggs out of a woman's body is NOT good for a woman's health. At all. I looked into it because I thought it might be wise to freeze eggs, and I decided against it due to the health concerns.
Turns out doctors don't just stand by and wait until a woman starts to ovulate naturally - who would have thought?

Isn’t it just far far far simpler to create a world where we accept that Male and female bodies have different functions but other than those primary functions everyone is free to do what the fuck they want (including ignoring their bodies primary functions).

That is much simpler, but it wouldn't enable males to exploit women. Therefore, it is not as popular among males and their supporters.

And let’s just say for arguments sake that we are creating our children in a brave new world gestation dorm, the vast majority of men would STILL be physically bigger and stronger than the vast majority of women.

I lift weights three times a week, I can lift my body weight over my head and deadlift my body weight plus a half. For a woman of my size I am strong.
My husband is an average size bloke who never goes to the gym and he is considerably stronger than me.
I rely on him being a nice person and not beating me up because I would be at a sever disadvantage.

Cloning for example. If we will always have male and female everything then why do we need to clone.

You do understand that the clone will be sexed, right?
And there is a reason higher organisms with longer life cycles did not go the 'bacterial' way of mitosis but evolved to sexually reproduce.

A "single gender" space where women can only keep out those men they know and trust, but cannot keep out complete strangers who are male but identify as feminine-gender, is even less safe than an officially mixed sex space.

Moreover, while in an officially mixed sex space, the group as a whole can decide to kick a creepy male out, in a single gender space, women aren't even allowed to say that there's a creepy male there.

I like this as a description of the situation, but who wants to regularly be in a situation in which we have to rely on men to protect us?

I could imagine a world where it is not necessary to divide on the basis of sex because the distinct functions of the male and female are no longer needed, the biological function of procreation will be taken over.

Will men also stop raping women in this future world of yours?

It's interesting to wonder how being freed from the potential of pregnancy would actually benefit women?

Freeing women from the potential of pregnancy is possible already, you know? It is called sterilisation and it is denied to adult human females for a lot of ridiculous reasons.

Why not campaign against that? Why not campaign for more research into reversible female sterilization?

Artificial wombs won't benefit women as long as the eggs to put in there are still taken from women. As I explained above.

Nor will artificial wombs stop males from raping women.

Artificial wombs won't even make doctors more wiling to sterilize women. If that were the case, the option of in-vitro fertilisation would have sufficed for doctors to be less worried about being sued.

And also lots of like being mothers.
I am not a mother myself but I have no problem being catagorised as the sex class that gestates the young.
Why do we have to have motherhood taken off our sex class just to appease some males because they can’t join in and they feel bad.
Motherhood is pretty important to our society.

I can also imagine how having no need for 2 distinct sexes will make being gender fluid much more likely.

Will humans become hermaphrodites, or what? Even without a 'need' for 2 distinct sexes, the larger, physically stronger one is still likely to want power over the smaller, physically weaker one.

BTW, what exactly do you mean by 'gender fluid'? Is it like the androgyny of the 80s?

It sometimes feel like if we won’t avcept TWAW then womanhood is being taken away and no one gets to be a woman.

I feel like that about toilets too (I’m sorry bringing toilets back) I don’t WANT unisex loos with separate cubicles and whatnot I WANT female loos, I like being female. I am female.

I like this as a description of the situation, but who wants to regularly be in a situation in which we have to rely on men to protect us?

I don't, which is why I prefer female-only spaces.

But having only the males who want to invade our spaces in a space with otherwise only women, who then are too afraid to talk to each other (and thus prevented from working together to protect themselves) is the worst possible situation.

The "Schroedinger's Rapist" situation is often described as a bowl of M&Ms about ten percent of which are poisoned, but you don't know which.

Now imagine you have a bowl with blue and yellow M&Ms, and poison has been found in some of the blue ones.
All the responsible manufacturers of blue M&Ms now stop production to research how that could have happened and if their own factory is affected, while those who don't care about customer health just dye their blue M&Ms yellow.

And now imagine how that changes the relative risk of getting poisoned.

I can also imagine how having no need for 2 distinct sexes will make being gender fluid much more likely.

I can very well imagine that some TRAs, the ones who are so obsessed about being 'more womanly than... [any female who does not choke herself in make up], dream of a world where only XY humans are cloned and XX humans are totally eradicated, thus having got rid of these creatures that wound their narcissistic ego by their mere existence.
Heterosexual males will never allow it, though, even though possibly for utterly selfish reasons.

Heterosexual males will never allow it, though, even though possibly for utterly selfish reasons

And despite what some TRAs appear to think

Yes I realise women don't have to get pregnant - but even those who have no intention of getting pregnant are still penalised in the job market aren't they? Because women of that age do become pregnant.

Wrt men still being stronger - who knows? Maybe genes will be manipulated so that everyone is the same.

Why do we have to have motherhood taken off our sex class just to appease some males because they can’t join in and they feel bad.

I don't think that it should be taken away from women and certainly not to appease some men but the potential to be a mother comes at a price. Women of child bearing ahe will always be seen as potential mothers - and that comes from both men and women.

All the responsible manufacturers of blue M&Ms now stop production to research how that could have happened and if their own factory is affected, while those who don't care about customer health just dye their blue M&Ms yellow.

And now imagine how that changes the relative risk of getting poisoned.

Indeed!

I don't think it would only be TRAs who would welcome a more fluid gender landscape. I think that a great many people would favour a blurring of gender lines and who is to say that after years of the lines being blurred they don't disappear altogether?

Wrt men still being stronger - who knows? Maybe genes will be manipulated so that everyone is the same.

Maybe robots will take over the world and eliminate all humans? Who knows, eh?