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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Good things that happen when you wear an "Adult Human Female" hoodie

230 replies

Candidpeel · 30/03/2019 23:25

I live in mine when I'm not at work....

Mainly get smiles from older women and glares from blue haired teenagers.

Wore it on the Brexit March and "like your jumper" worked as a secret handshake to find a new member for our local GC meet-up group

Answered the door to a council election candidate in it today and had a great conversation about what the gender critical grown ups are trying to do to bring the Green party to its senses.

I haven't yet bumped into another hoodie wearer in the wild :)

What has happened to you when you wear yours?

OP posts:
knitandpearl · 31/03/2019 08:38

Anyway Eresh, I generally agree with all of your posts on these boards. The only thing I disagree with is your assertion (by claiming mine was wrong) that these hoodies are the best way to reach political agreement.

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:38

Remainers are deeply offended by pro Brexit slogans and vice versa. People feel it's important to make those statements though, because it's an important political issue. No one is forcing anyone to wear one. The first thing you mentioned was trans people's feelIngs. Female socialisation in action. "Be kind, don't be mean, don't rock the boat".

Have you lectured any trans people not to say TWAW?

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:40

The only thing I disagree with is your assertion (by claiming mine was wrong) that these hoodies are the best way to reach political agreement.

Please don't twist my words. I said nothing of the sort. I said that it is important that people feel that they can make the statement, they're not scared to, and it isn't illegal.

And you saying that they shouldn't, is what I think you're very wrong about.

Funkyfunkybeat12 · 31/03/2019 08:41

GuitarGeek yes I wouldn’t be impressed with a TWAW t-shirt either.

I have totally given up on the TWAW debate. It’s pointless. Okay, TWAW (without a definition of what woman is), but there still exists a group of people born with vaginas who are treated like crap the world over. They still need legal protection and they still have certain experiences that are going to be different to those not born with vaginas. Whatever term you use to refer to them they will still be there. If you want to argue that female people aren’t treated badly, try to explain sex selective abortions and the murder of female infants.

knitandpearl · 31/03/2019 08:42

Ok, so do you think 'immigrants weren't born here' is a political slogan or a purely context-free statement of fact?

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:43

have totally given up on the TWAW debate. It’s pointless.

It's not. It's at the heart of it. What you just said isn't going to be understandable to many people. It doesn't cut through the bullshit like the AHF slogan does.

GabrielleNelson · 31/03/2019 08:44

@ GabrielleNelson Trans women believe that they are women and are offended by people saying that they aren't, hence why some will find the hoodie offensive. If the statement was purely a biological fact and had no political intent behind it, there would be no need or desire to put it on a hoodie. I don't really think that does baffle you - at least it shouldn't.

What baffles me is how the assertion that TWAW (with the occasional afterthought statement TMAM) has gained such traction in such a short time. Did old school transsexuals believe they had genuinely changed sex? I doubt it. From what I've read they had spent years having psychiatric treatment and a condition of getting the surgery was to accept that they were suffering from the psychological condition of gender dysphoria or whatever the label was then. Dysphoria also was and is a condition of getting a GRC - if you don't have the dysphoria diagnosis from a psychiatrist, you don't get a GRC.

But here we are now in a position where a small but extremely vocal and influential minority of the population has managed to get public policy changed amazingly fast right across the English-speaking world (the more affluent countries, anyway) to a point where it's become controversial to say that biological sex exists, it's binary and it's unchangeable because sex is fixed at conception and no matter how much hormone treatment and surgery a person has later on, at the chromosomal level they will remain the sex they were born as.

Transwomen are not women. Transwomen are biologically male. For a variety of reasons they prefer to present to the world in accordance with the stereotypes generally applied to females in their culture. That's their right, but it doesn't change the underlying biological reality.

In all other cases, we expect people to accept the physical reality of the world they live in and their own bodies, and where they don't/can't we see that there is something wrong that needs to be sorted out.

If a teenager with an eating disorder insisted on being accepted as fat even if everyone could see she was actually painfully thin, no one would hesitate to say she was ill and needed help to get over this delusion.

If a patient tells a GP that they have become convinced their left eye doesn't belong to them and needs to be removed, the GP should not be arranging a referral for surgery. This is a case for psychiatric/psychological help.

If a psychiatric inpatient is convinced he can fly, the staff don't open the windows and help him out onto the window ledge.

But if a little boy who prefers dressing up to playing with toy soldiers becomes convinced that means he should really be a girl it's become acceptable in some circles to say to him 'yes, you were born in the wrong body and when you are older you can have an operation to make you into a girl'.

And if a teenager who has experienced abuse has come to hate her own body and wants to change it so that nobody treats her that way again, doctors are facilitating that instead of helping her to come to terms with what's been done to her and equipping her with the personal resilience to get through puberty and cope with adult life.

And if a middle-aged man who has built a career without having to worry about maternity leave or other caring responsibilities, who has married and had children, decides to go public and say that all his life he has secretly felt compelled to dress up in women's clothes and now he wants to do it full-time, the rest of us are now expected to do a bit of 1984ish reprogramming of our memory banks and treat this individual as a woman even though we know for sure that he isn't, and we're also expected to put out of our minds the knowledge that for many such men this is a sexual fetish.

This is what baffles me.

knitandpearl · 31/03/2019 08:44

Eresh, read the first post itt where you quoted me saying 'there are better ways' and said I was wrong. That is all I'm going on.

GuitarGeek · 31/03/2019 08:44

Yes wimmin, pipe down. GuitarGeek is here too tell you that you are immature and pathetic for disgreeing with him / her.

Confused Not for disagreeing, but for wearing a hoodie with a definition on purely for a reaction. I haven't actually said what my opinion is about trans people.

And in case you are confused, it's 'her'. Born female. HTH. Not that you're being goady of course. Wink

Funkyfunkybeat12 · 31/03/2019 08:45

No, by wearing it you are saying that trans ideology is a load of shit. Which you are free to do of course but I don’t know why you’re scratching your head when those who believe the opposite are offended. Own it.

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:46

Ok, so do you think 'immigrants weren't born here' is a political slogan or a purely context-free statement of fact?

I think it's a poor analogy. As I said. And yes of course it's a political slogan, though not one I would agree with.

Fridasrage · 31/03/2019 08:48

Ereshkigal I think you should probably reread my posts. I haven't actually said that wearing the hoodie is bad or that the slogan is offensive.
You're attacking a straw man.

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:49

No, by wearing it you are saying that trans ideology is a load of shit

If people want to interpret it that way that's up to them. But that's not actually the wording. Bit thought policey, don't you think?

It's just affirming that woman are a biological sex class. It's not actually our fault that has become a political statement and controversial. I sure as hell didn't fucking vote for pseudoscientific ideology to be prioritised over the rights of women.

Fridasrage · 31/03/2019 08:49

I haven't actually said what my opinion is about trans people.

Christ i feel ya on this one.

knitandpearl · 31/03/2019 08:51

fridas I was about to post the same thing! My point is that it's goady therefore will put ppl like me off engaging, and that ppl shouldn't pretend to be 'surprised' by a reaction to a 'dictionary definition' when they have acknowledged it's a political statement.
Not a wrong or false statement, just don't pretend you thought it wasn't.

This is why I detest discussing anything on these boards

knitandpearl · 31/03/2019 08:51

(That was re your 'straw man' post)

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:52

I haven't actually said that wearing the hoodie is bad or that the slogan is offensive.

You're being disingenuous. You have said that "others are likely to find it offensive". Why bother pointing this out so many times if it's just a difference of opinion? So what? You're exerting pressure on people not to do it.

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:54

But it is just a simple statement of fact.

A woman is an adult human female. We need to feel that we can freely express this. Or we will lose our rights, because no one else is thinking about us.

Ereshkigal · 31/03/2019 08:57

If you (all of you saying this) want to bang on about how "goady" it is to make this statement then you can own that you are trying to persuade people not to wear them.

birdsdestiny · 31/03/2019 08:58

Yes we did not arrange that the meaning of the word woman has become controversial. If people have a problem with the controversy around the word woman they need to take it up with those who have created this situation.

Fridasrage · 31/03/2019 08:58

Ereshkigal

That's really not where i'm coming from. If i wanted to say that i find the hoodie offensive, that's what i would have said.

My post stated that it's disingenuous to pretend that you don't know that it's going to be offensive to some people, as numerous people had commented that they 'didn't know why it was offensive' etc. It's just daft to pretend that's the case and it gets in the way of serious discussion.

GuitarGeek · 31/03/2019 08:59

This is why I detest discussing anything on these boards

This. It's such a shame as there is discussion needed. But it seems that unless you are in the group wearing a hoodie/tshirt then you are the enemy. It does put people off from engaging, me included.

Anyway, I'm off to celebrate Mother's Day with my children, the children I gave birth to because I am female despite what a couple of people here seem to think.

Lamaha · 31/03/2019 09:00

Which you are free to do of course but I don’t know why you’re scratching your head when those who believe the opposite are offended. Own it

There are some people who believe the earth is a flat disk. Yes, they might get offended when I make a factual claim that the earth is, in fact, round.

Getting offended is a choice. It's not my job to say things that won't get people offended, to protect them from facts so that they won't get offended. I'm a professional writer in my other life; I don't walk on eggshells.

(No I haven't got the t-shirt with the message and it's not my style to wear one, but I'd certainly smile and say hi to anyone I saw wearing one.)

Fridasrage · 31/03/2019 09:00

@knitandpearl Totally agree.

The middle ground is just being screamed out of the debate.

Fridasrage · 31/03/2019 09:01

unless you are in the group wearing a hoodie/tshirt then you are the enemy

This