Hi, I'm Liz the Glitch! Ask me anything.

[glitchliz]

The thread I wrote about attending Posie Parker's panel on gender identity and social media has attracted a lot of attention, and I thought it might be good to establish more of a dialogue. Ask me anything!

Also, to get this one out of the way: my babysitting rates are £15/hr, plus flights, and I'll provide a clean CRB check 😂

The thing is, I have no idea what feeling like a woman means to any other woman. I know we have shared experiences as we have vaginas, uteruses, and 'assigned gender stereotypes' and thus have endured negativity or reactive responses from the outside world due to that. But the feelings are my own, from my personality.

I know I can freely reject all those stereotypes if I want to. But I'm still a woman.

I only know I'm a woman due to my primary sexual characteristics and my dna, which happens to carry a disease predominantly found in women.

So I do not really understand that there is Euphoria in being the opposite sex other than a performative, imagined, stereotyped one.

I note most of my queries which are based on sex, gender and biology have been avoided.

What is violent, is perpetuating hateful ideas - promoting viewpoints that are associated with women being assaulted, raped, and killed, for example. This includes trans women, too

Do you recognise the need to identify male pattern violence, abuse, rape etc and that this is key to protecting women (adult human females) and children especially.

Also that it is important to recognise that male violence, abuse including sexual assaults against other males needs identifying and challenging?

Can you accept that prioritising gender identities obscure what is a sex- based pattern and so will frustrate and limit societies capacity to deal with this and protect all people (of both sexes and all ages) from male violence and abuse.

Autogynephilia refers to a theorised sexual fetish for being a woman - it's a widely discredited theory, and is exceptionally bad science.

But there are quite a few people who're happy to say they're AGP.

What being "raised as a boy"?

As a young woman, I always internally felt very solid, very blunt and straightforwards and not at all dainty or feminine. I was shocked the first time I saw myself on camera that I was the very opposite of all of these things.

It seems to me that many transwomen must feel and observe the precise opposite of what I felt.

How can both of those feelings be the feelings of a woman?

I refuse to accept this 'identifying as a woman' nonsense when there's no effort to permanently change their physical appearance.

I'm happy to refer to a male person who's had extreme surgery to remove their penis and testicles as 'she' but I can't accept that a man wearing make-up and a dress who chooses to 'identify as a woman' should be given the same privilege. My friend's Aunty has been a transwoman (i.e. had the OP) for more than twenty years and I'm happy to refer to her as 'she' as she's just a pleasant person going about her business and not a threat to anyone.

However, any man with his tackle intact, wearing make-up and a dress is still a man in a dress.

Also, I don't accept this stupid trendy phrase CIS woman. If you are born female and therefore, not in need of surgical intervention, then you are a woman, period.

For the record - I think that a woman can feel any way she wants. I don't think being a woman is connected to what you feel at all.

And the ones you don't want to answer will just be ignored...?

Yep!

What 'inner sense' are you talking about here? I don't have an 'inner sense' of being a woman, I know I am one because of the biological reality of my body. That's it.

When I'm interacting with people as a woman, being perceived as one, referred to with 'she' and 'her', that feels right. Being perceived as a man, interacting with people as a man, etc feels wrong. I love the effects oestrogen has had on me, which is indicative - we know what happens with cis gay men are made to take oestrogen.

If you identify with women you would get how AGPs in women's spaces, getting a sexual thrill from being 'validated' by unconsenting women, is seriously creepy. Instead you are saying they do not exist?

I'm saying that the whole study Blanchard did on 'autogynephilia' is flawed, bad science, and has been debunked. Getting a sexual thrill from impersonating a woman, or being dressed as a woman, is fine - I'm not going to police people's kinks - but I wouldn't want to be a part of it either. This phantom, of the man getting his kicks from pretending to be a woman, is used to invalidate or paint as horrors trans women who don't conform to expected stereotypes of femininity or womanhood. That isn't acceptable, and there are far more pressing dangers for women and girls, including trans women.

There are many trans people who acknowledge the reality of their sex. Do you think they are wrong about themselves?

Their truth is their truth. Mine is mine.

These are the transwomen I have known in my adult life. What I now see are transwomen asserting that they are literally female and that their male sex organs are female. Why is the only acceptable response to so many trans activists total capitulation to what is an objective untruth?

I'm happy to accept people on their terms, and I appreciate the courtesy of doing the same for me. Treating people as you want to be treated is a fine rule, but treating other people the way they want to be treated is better.

You don't have an inner sense of being a woman. You just don't.
I don't know what you have an inner sense of, but it's not being a woman.

Autogynephilia refers to a theorised sexual fetish for being a woman - it's a widely discredited theory, and is exceptionally bad science.

Yet it’s in the DSm and ICd - (for now of course, because the trans lobby have been astonishingly Successful at getting opinion to override evidential medicine)

Can you explain why the concept of AGP is ‘astonishingly bad science’? I’m a scientist so be as technical as you like.

There are screens of reddit devoted to self confessed autogynephiles. Are they all fake?

cis is pointless as I don't know any women who fully embrace all the performative gender stereotypes associated with their sex. So it means nothing and only serves to restrain or constrain women.

"What is violent, is perpetuating hateful ideas - promoting viewpoints that are associated with women being assaulted, raped, and killed, for example."

But you posted a picture of yourself holding a baseball bat as a result of going to a meeting full of c*s women you claim to have everything in common with. A baseball bat, which is the TRA go to weapon of choice!

Their truth is their truth. Mine is mine.

No, no. There is an objective reality. this idea of ‘my truth is valid’ is a postmodernist construct.

‘Your truth’ is your opinion. If it conflicts with reality, reality wins.

Liz, if you're going to ignore questions you don't want to answer, it's not really AMA, is it? AMAIMAIIFLI (aask me anything, I might answer if I feel like it).

Their truth is their truth. Mine is mine.

Subjective truth verses objective truth.

So what's the point in doing an "ask me anything" if you're not going to answer half the questions asked?

Let's rename the thread "ask me anything-as long as it doesn't hurt my feelings"

I do think that messages I'm getting on here that say 'You're just a man', 'you think like a bloke', 'you're violent' etc are unpleasant to read, and are untrue

I don't doubt that it's upsetting for you, but it's frustrating (to put it very mildly) for women that the trans lobby can't actually define what it is that means a transwoman is NOT a man, whilst simultaneously demanding rights (at the expense of "cis" women's rights) on the basis that they aren't men. Can you understand that to a lot of us, this is just another case of men's rights being put before women's? Can you see how your position is just completely at odds with women's realities in this regard?

How do you know that being a woman is what you want to be, and it’s not the rejection of being male? Or rejection of yourself and it’s a way of reinventing yourself entirely?

Because I think for some people it will be, and it needs a lot of investigation, and a genuine diagnosis. I am sure GD is torturous but surgery and a life time of medication should surely be a last resort when everything has been explored? And yet the main trans charity mermaids think it’s ok to have transition surgery with no therapy. How can anyone think this is ok?

Surely as a trans woman you should be ensuring every available support is on offer for young people to help them through this?

Why aren’t we seeing trans people insisting on better health care?

Thanks for coming back Liz.
I am just a lurker here but I would like to ask you a question if I may.

Many health treatments and assessments depend on biological sex so would you prefer to say you are a man and get appropriate treatment or say you are a woman and risk your own health (and the registration/licences of healthcare professionals who are treating you)?

Can I repeat my question from earlier, please: What noun should we use to describe the class of people who produce ova and can gestate a foetus?

When I'm interacting with people as a woman, being perceived as one...

How do you know anybody perceives you as a women though? Even if someone address you in the manner you prefer, all that tells you is they are willing to acquiesce to your demands, it tells you nothing of how they actually perceive you.

If your mental health is contingent on people actually perceiving you the way you want them too and not just humoring you, how do you propose policing perception?

How are you going to make people see a female when they see a male?

Liz, if you're going to ignore questions you don't want to answer, it's not really AMA, is it?

Feel free to ask me whatever you like! Nobody owes anyone else an answer.

Besides, there are well over 300 responses to this thread - it's not reasonable to expect me to answer all of them.

cis is pointless as I don't know any women who fully embrace all the performative gender stereotypes associated with their sex. So it means nothing and only serves to restrain or constrain women.

If people have described you as a woman or girl from birth, and you're happy with that description, you're cis - i.e., not trans. I understand that there is a lot of backlash against being described as 'cis', but all it means is that you're not transgender. It has nothing to do with stereotypes. By not describing cis women as cis, and just using 'woman', you're implicitly saying that trans women are 'other', external, abnormal, when really it's a descriptor. You don't talk about 'women and tall women', for example.

Liz, from your comments upthread I think you understand that you have a male body

And yet you know you are a woman

can you explain how you know you are a woman? You have turned your life upside down on the basis of this, so you must have given it some thought

I really want to understand this!

This phantom, of the man getting his kicks from pretending to be a woman

And there it is. Truth always outs, no matter how frilly the skirts are that try to hide it.

Autogynephilia refers to a theorised sexual fetish for being a woman - it's a widely discredited theory, and is exceptionally bad science

So how do you account for those transgender women who openly admit to be autogynophiles?

I did, no answer yet. Did you not want to answer or are you working up to it?