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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

The 'aren't women who can't reproduce women then?!' argument

32 replies

DaiStation · 25/03/2019 20:04

So I've officially peaked and I'm really, really angry. Women's sport, lesbians on chairs and Susie Green trying to argue she didn't castrate her child have pushed me over the edge.

I've been trying to find evidence for the idea that no disadvantage exists for natal women competing with trans women - there fucking isn't any. I watched the lesbians on chairs video crying, it reminded me of the scene with Emily at immigration in Handmaid's tale - all 1st world country, following procedure, stamping on the face of women's rights. I'm fucking appalled by what happened to that child and the kids in the states - KIDS - having their bodies mutilated because they don't conform to gender 'norms' which are fucking social constructions and not some kind of innate feeling I mean wtaf is this shit?!

But the female biology thing got me thinking. I've read a lot of crit about the idea that women are the sex capable of bearing children, because some women obviously cant, amd some intersex people are born with female genitalia but no womb etc etc. And then I though about all the i fertile women throughout history who'be been - and who are - having the shit kicked out of them and being killed for exactly this reason, and shamed/subject to invasive questioning in our culture for exactly this reason. Which again speaks to our biology as the tool of our oppression right? Or am I wrong?

Anyway that was cathartic. Exhale.

OP posts:
Original poster
DaiStation · 25/03/2019 20:05

*infertile obviously!

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ErrolTheDragon · 25/03/2019 20:06

Which again speaks to our biology as the tool of our oppression right? Or am I wrong?

Spot on, I reckon.

butteryellow · 25/03/2019 20:33

How do these women find out their infertile? When they try to have a child, or when some other aspect of their female anatomy causes an investigation which uncovers it, or when they have some disease which affects their female anatomy.

These women were recognised as female from (or before) birth. They made assumptions, and had assumptions made about them. Then as part of some other issue, they now find that some of these assumptions were wrong in their case. It's bloody horrible to use women's fertility issues as a gotcha to suggest that these women therefore aren't women, just piling yet more abuse on women who are already likely having to re-write the expectations of how their life will go.

Alternatively, for women who don't want kids, no matter their fertility status, it's biological determinism - suggesting that women are only women if they use their female biology to reproduce. No feminist would support that idea.

Our biology has been the source of our oppression since time immemorial, the fact that we have it, that it defines our class, doesn't mean that each of us individually can, or has to use that biology.

Ereshkigal · 25/03/2019 20:34

Which again speaks to our biology as the tool of our oppression right? Or am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong. They are the ones reducing women to our bodies when you look at awful dehumanising language like "people with a uterus", "cervix haver".

sackrifice · 25/03/2019 20:38

How do these women find out their infertile? When they try to have a child, or when some other aspect of their female anatomy causes an investigation which uncovers it, or when they have some disease which affects their female anatomy.

Yes. I don't think any of them found out they couldn't conceive when a doctor examined them and said 'the reason you cannot conceive is because you are a sperm producer and that is a penis'.

Ereshkigal · 25/03/2019 20:44

Yes, just like intersex women with CAIS find out they have XY chromosomes when their periods fail to start as teenagers and investigations are done. Devastating. Whereas many MTF trans people appear to discover their innate womanhood after fathering several children. So disingenuous.

WineGummyBear · 25/03/2019 20:47

Check out Peachyoghurt on YouTube. She has a video called the bicycle analogy.

Cuts to the heart of what a spurious, disingenuous line of questioning it all is. Anyone can identify a bicycle. Same goes for a woman. It's really not complicated.

(And yes intersex conditions exist, but actually that's really not what this is about is it?)

Original poster
DaiStation · 25/03/2019 20:52

It's bloody horrible to use women's fertility issues as a gotcha to suggest that these women therefore aren't women, just piling yet more abuse on women who are already likely having to re-write the expectations of how their life will go.

Agreed - there seems to be a lack of understanding that it's our bodies as a group that cause us to be oppressed - whether they can or can't bear children; whether our genitalia do or don't align in the usual way with the rest of our reproductive systems. In some way, we are always judged on how our bodies can be used, against an impossible and indefinable ideal of 'femininity'.

This is not to says that trans people do not face oppression - they absolutely do. What I don't understand and can't seem to find an answer to, is why we can't work together on the understanding that we are differently oppressed rather than this forced assimilation which is causing harm to women and children.

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RepealTheGRA · 25/03/2019 20:56

You’re right, it’s an appalling argument, especially when used by an MP on a web chat Angry

OhHolyJesus · 25/03/2019 21:07

What I don't understand and can't seem to find an answer to, is why we can't work together on the understanding that we are differently oppressed rather than this forced assimilation which is causing harm to women and children.

Because they truly believe TWAW and are the same as us. They want to be us, be oppressed so they can have people feel sorry for them for being 'victims', have periods (I mean why on earth?), flick their hair and say they know how it feels...and do all this whilst chipping away at everything that we have for ourselves.

It is the perhaps the most selfish and least 'sisterly' thing you could do.

I read on a thread on here I think - someone who overheard two trans women students talking in a Uni canteen that they wouldn't use the Unisex loo as it would put them as transwomen. Says a lot.

Original poster
DaiStation · 25/03/2019 21:13

Gah but we could be sisters! This is what I don't get it's so stupid! Patriarchy sucks, so let's use our DIFFERING EXPERIENCES of it to move forward!

But no, instead let's re-assert the binary and hurt a whole lot of people physically and emotionally while we're at it. I genuinely think in 20 years there'll be documentaries with these traumatised kids asking how their parents could have done this to them.

Jesus Christ.

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BarbieJellyBabyBrain · 25/03/2019 21:42

Bicycle analogy

DodoPatrol · 25/03/2019 21:46

See, by now I just want to say 'Oh bugger off you daft wee sod and don't be so silly' to anyone trying that argument.

Do not tangle with the menopausally sleepless, I tell you.

BarbieJellyBabyBrain · 25/03/2019 21:51

The appropriation of infertile women along with intersex people, as nothing more than a gotcha, is one of the most vile aspects of this whole thing.

Again it's dehumanising - these people only exist to TRAs as a way of getting one over those who disagree with them. They don't give a fuck about infertile women, about the experiences they have had, the road they have been down to get to the state of 'infertile woman'. Those women are only useful to them for one thing.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 25/03/2019 22:33

Of the sex that produce ova and gestate. It's that simple. The ova and gestation don't have to be in full working order.

Is a car with a broken exhaust no longer a car? If I paint a parsnip orange does it become a carrot?

AstonishedFemalePersonator · 26/03/2019 07:31

Check out Peachyoghurt on YouTube

I cannot recommend PeachY's videos enough. They are clear and informative. Plus, Peach herself has a delightful accent and a great sense of humour. She is fab.

heresyisthenewblack · 26/03/2019 08:32

Every time I hear this argument, it makes me want to vomit.
Women with infertility issues or medical conditions that affect their reproductive systems go through enough.
They really don't need males-who-identify-as-women (or TRA allies) to insult them like this and be used in some kind of game to attempt to prop up the illogical house of cards that is gender ideology.

charlestonchaplin · 26/03/2019 09:05

Infertile women are still of the sex that can bear offspring and produce eggs. The fact that pathology means bearing offspring and/or producing eggs doesn’t happen, doesn’t change the fact that they are of that (female) sex. They certainly aren’t of the sex which produce sperm to fertilise eggs, as is the case with transwomen.

With intersex people the situation can be different. While I completely agree with intersex people choosing the sex they ‘operate’ in day to day, it would be biologically dishonest to not acknowledge that some are genetic males, even though they have believed themselves to be females and have been brought up that way.

Ereshkigal · 26/03/2019 09:11

With intersex people the situation can be different. While I completely agree with intersex people choosing the sex they ‘operate’ in day to day, it would be biologically dishonest to not acknowledge that some are genetic males, even though they have believed themselves to be females and have been brought up that way.

I agree. The point I made earlier was that it is disingenuous to compare perfectly healthy non intersex biological males (often only "identifying" as the opposite sex late in life) with biologically male intersex people with a condition that makes them appear to be female, so much so that they only find out they are not after having been raised as a girl for 15 odd years.

charlestonchaplin · 26/03/2019 09:19

I appreciate your point Ereshkigal.

VickyEadie · 26/03/2019 10:08

The kind of mental gymnastics some people - even women - have gone through to come up with 'women who are infertile = men who want to be women' is quite staggering. I know small children who'd find that 'argument' entirely stupid.

FeministCat · 26/03/2019 12:01

Being of the sex capable of bearing children does not mean as individuals that if we can’t or choose not to bear children we stop being of the sex capable. That’s like saying a man who is born without or loses a leg is no longer of the bipedal species of human.

While I am not one of the infertile woman I think you are talking about, I am childfree by choice, and infertile choice. I am a woman. As are all women who are involuntarily infertile.

My decisions to be childfree and sterilize myself actually are deeply affected by my experiences as a woman, and I can not easily separate them.

FeministCat · 26/03/2019 12:02

Sorry should read “infertile by choice”.

cleanhousewastedlife · 26/03/2019 17:12

And I'm infertile not by choice. This has a profound impact on my life as a woman but in no way defines it. To imply that it does is so insulting that I really don't think I have the words.

Original poster
DaiStation · 26/03/2019 18:42

I just read my OP back and I'm sorry if it comes across like I am in some way in agreement - I was writing in a splutter of indignant rage and trying to say 'this is obviously bollocks but I don't know how to articulate it' which you have all now helped me do. Thank you for all being great and sorry this crap is going on!

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