Ama - transwoman

[Indigo9]

I've heard about Mumsnet for years in regards to views on transgender women. But until today I had never visited the site. I've spent hours reading posts related to transwomen and the gender ID bill. I do think there is a little bit of a disconnect with regards to who and what we are. So I've decided to setup this profile with a mind to answering questions you may have about being transgender. I'm not in to hate or insults, so you won't see me participate in any mud slinging, name calling or anything else. I will, however, answer any legitimate questions from my own perspective. I do not speak for the whole trans community and would not try to, but will happily share what I know.

What is ‘thinking like a woman’. Women are all individuals and do not think alike.

Ugh, 5 seconds on wikipedia makes everything clear enough:

Members of a species that produce ova are female.
Members of a specias that priduce spermatozoa are male.

Done, the end of discussion. Why is this so hard?
Earth is not flat.

/rant

If Stonewall or any of the other big trans orgs gave the smallest shit about how women might feel, they’d be using their money & clout to fight for safe third spaces for transpeople and to reinforce acceptance of them AS transpeople.

But it’s increasingly apparent that none of them do, so there we go.

Hi Indigo9, welcome to Mumsnet.

I'm the opposite sex to you. Don't let that fact hurt your feelings, it's simply an objective truth, there are two sexes and you and I are opposite. C'est la vie.

I'm the sex that has no Y chromosome. The sex that has uterus, ovaries, vagina. The one that makes ova and babies. You know the one? The one that got denied the vote because of that sex, suffers FGM, never been an American president, dies in childbirth sometimes. That sex. You know the one.
And you're the other sex. I won't list the innate physical characteristics of your sex. I'm sure we both know them.
There's a word for my sex, and a different word for yours, and those words distinguish our two sexes perfectly, and the definition of my word fits me perfectly, and the definition of yours fits you perfectly.

Anyway, that fact of my sex, that material, objective, and verifiable fact, matters a great deal to me.
I fundamentally want to distinguish myself from you and your sex because, well, we're so fundamentally different! We're opposites and always will be.
That's ok, isn't it?
That's not an unreasonable thing to want.
I know you understand my burning desire to be recognised as different from you, since you yourself also feel very strongly that you want to distance yourself from a certain sex yourself. So I know you can empathise with how I feel.

And, I know you understand how frustrating it is to be grouped with people against your will.

And you know, my case to distinguish myself from you, is, believe it or not, much stronger than your case to distinguish yourself from men. See, all of the characteristics that make me and everyone of my sex different from you and everyone of yours are really, really obvious and matter an enormous deal.

The thing is, I'm now in the position where I can't properly distinguish myself from you like I should be able to. Bummer, right?
I find you've prevented me from doing that by appropriating all the words that relate specifically to my sex. I'll be honest, I'm a little bit cross that you've started using the words that specifically describe my physical sex, because that has muddled their meaning and left me without my own words to describe my body and my sex. Anyway, bygones.

So my question to you, Indigo9 is this:

"Can you please stop using the words that relate to my sex and not yours?"

It's making it impossible for me to distinguish myself from the opposite sex, and from you. And it's forcing both of us into the same category when we clearly don't belong together.

If you like, I'll help you come up with new words that have absolutely no chance of being confused with me and my sex.

That way, you can distinguish yourself from the people you feel you don't belong with, and, I, and my sex, can distinguish ourselves from you!

Thanks.

“I don’t know how men think any more than you do, men’s minds are such a mystery amirite!!” is such annoying trite. I know pretty well how my husband thinks - he is more emotional and sensitive than me. Men aren’t one homogeneous blob, they’re individuals who all think differently. Just as women are individuals who all think differently.

I do agree that the higher levels of aggression in men are testosterone + socialisation, but there’s no mysterious male way of thinking beyond that.

I also struggle to see how I “think like a woman”. I don’t think any of my thoughts have ever been specificially womanly (I have as many male friends as women). The only thing I would click with women more over is female experiences like living through body image pressures as a teen girl, birth, breastfeeding etc. We are all individuals, male or female. What is a “female” way of thinking?

I've got my comfy pants on today. I like comfy pants every day but today it's more important because I've got my period and have endometriosis and am so bloated I look like I did when I was 6 months pregnant with my third child. I'm breastfeeding that child too, which means tops that are easy access and some medications I can't take. Could really do with some doxycycline to shift my sinusitis but can't take it whilst breastfeeding.

That's my experience of being a woman today.

My thoughts have been along the lines of "I need a cup of tea and painkillers" (first thoughts of the day after "ugh") and that I need to clear out the garage and decorate the house. So womanly 🤷🏼‍♀️

Barracker - what you said - thank you

I wish being a woman was as simple as wearing comfy pants at the end of the day and not feeling the need to wear make up all the time - oh and being kind - what a simple world that would be.

What is a woman?

A question only woman can really answer an so far it appears to more lived experiences than thoughts or feelings.

As i push 40 (😳) and i look at my girls i started to think about what is a woman, so first i asked them (3&6) their answer, supported by confused stares a woman is..

"it's you, it's what i am! ... I don't know what you mean? " is daddy a woman? "no!" what if daddy wears dresses, "no! ".

So they can't say what a woman is but they know it's not clothes.

I can't say what it is either, i only know my own lived experiences..

Early years... Girls are not nice, in fact thry can bully, cat call and make my life a misery boys seem much less nasty.

Puberty... Shit, don't like these changes, why do thry happen, stop them, don't want breasts, too big, who invented bras? Crap, period OMG! SHIT the blood keeps pouring, can't actually sit on chair in svhool due to pain, bugger is it going to leak, will everyone see, know, girls toilets full of smokers can't actually use the toilets.

16+...it's all about sex, so many friends in relationships with 30+ men, yuck! Getting used to this body and periods, still not happy but that's life.

Pregnancy, ok so friends started falling from around 13, we all know about pregnancy, abortion, young mothers, sluts slags etc. Funny that the dads have no special names 🤔.

University. Catcalls, name calls, too boyish attempts at makeup and feminine are failures, give up and just be me. Now it's men who are meaner.

Parenthood, weight gain, stretch marks, feelinf responsibility or child before and after birth, guilt, pain, not enough understanding of issues following births. People losing babies, until 24 weeks lack of care or concern. Damage to body, lack of mefucal support, damage is permanent no help or understanding just have to live with it.

Work place woman judged far more on looks, more emphasis placed on appearance than ability. I do as i do, no femaninity in excess for me.

That is being a woman to me, i am unusual in that i have never really felt much fear from males, never been assaulted and never suffered financial loss. But 1 thing i have necer had is a feeling of being a woman that wasn't followed by some sort of, shit this means or this will hurt or damage.

In conclusion, i have lived almost 40 years as a woman but haven't got a clue how to think like a woman or feel like a woman, perhaps another thing i am doing wrong.

I also think my husband is far kinder than I am.

I've got my comfy pants on today.

I’m musing a bit on this now.

Are we all talking about comfy knickers or comfy trousers?

The 'comfy pants' thing is going to stick isn't it?

Comfy pants!

I’ve rarely found a truly comfy pair of (English meaning) pants

I think I’m a funny shape

My comfy pants are my post c section full briefs from M&S that I'm still wearing 3 years later (not continuously - I do wash them/me)

I imagine they mean 'trousers'.

The thing is, blokes are just as likely to change into grey joggers when they get home aren't they?

Incidentally my comfy pants, as in knickers, are absolutely giant ones that I bought for wearing post partum but still wear now sometimes. Unfortunately, they are not so giant these days....

Would I be correct in deducing that you believe your feelings to be more important than the feelings of people who were born female? As evidenced by your belief that you should be allowed to intimidate women, but men should not be allowed to intimidate you?

I imagine they mean 'trousers'.

Yes, that’s what I think too. The idea of wearing uncomfy knickers to work would be really odd.

And if one of the characteristics that define women are kindness and they less likely to control, how come these new women are raping women in prisons, sexually assaulting them in halfway houses, shouting at them in shops, demanding access to them in changing rooms, changing laws, beating them at sport, threatening them with rape and violence, defunding rape refuges, harassing them and pursuing them across social media, shutting down talks and intimidating Millwall football club (who, up until then, apparently everyone hated, but they didn't care)???

Just askin'.

Also, OP, I feel it's only fair to point out to you, that you are the gazillionth transwoman to do this on here. None of whom have ever answered any questions, despite that being the reason for the thread. Altho I have to say that the reason you won't answer how you feel like a woman is because there is far too much to say, is a novel one.

EachDubh

Good summary, much (but not all) of which I can relate to.

Gender dysphoria is a real condition, in which the sufferer finds him/herself feeling completely alien to their own body (correct me if that's an incorrect short summary).

It doesn't mean that the person is, therefore, the opposite sex. Because they're clearly not.

I think they meant tracksuit bottoms but were too embarrassed to admit to it because it’s not ladylike.

But I might be wrong because I’m clearly not woman enough.

Soz if not so, Indigo.

Honestly, why did nobody tell me that 'post partum' knickers were forever?

I suppose logically the rest of one's life is post partum.

What is a woman?

A woman is born from a woman, she is not born from the surgeon's knife. No matter what lies he has told you to get you to pay up.

A women is born female and her biological and immutable sex imparts both great privilege (we carry and gestate life) and huge disadvantage.

We are physically weaker than those born male after puberty and are thereby regarded to be lesser than men.

We routinely face abuse and peripheralisation in almost all aspects of life; economically, politically, socially and this has as its root cause the physical difference between the sexes, we have inferior physical strength and size and we gestate, birth and care for our young.

We fear men in our single-sex spaces, because we have navigated our weakness in all aspects of our lives to this point.

Women have succeeded despite this weakness for millennia, and this will not change.

Indigo9

I've read all your replies to the questions asked so far, and you haven't actually answered any of them, just waffled or deflected.

Do you really think that women and men have or should have such totally different experiences of life? Why do you think that? What do you think women are allowed to do which is denied to men, or vice versa? Do you think this is a good thing? Don't you think it would be better if we could all live our lives as we wish, regardless of our sex?

You mentioned men attacking gender non-conforming men in the men's toilets. This is a problem for men, but it's not one which is solved by allowing the most feminine men to use the women's toilets. The decent, non-violent men should be working towards making this a situation which doesn't happen. We don't have to accept male violence as a given, but it's not something that women can, or should have to sort out on our own. Men, including men who identify as women, should be working on this problem.

You said stuff about 'thinking like a woman'. Do you really think that all women think in the same way, all men think the same way, and there is no overlap between the sexes? Transgenderism is proof that all members of one sex don't think the same, since you clearly don't think you think the same way as other men. And if you hang around on MN you'll see that women are far from all thinking the same.

And as for the ludicrous comment I, and other woman are more kind generally. Less likely to control others. Do you really think all women are kind? (and are you saying all men are unkind?) And as for control, have you heard of Theresa May?

Anyway, under advice from Germaine Bunbury, I'm off to walk on the beach and look for rocks.

@Indigo9

Why is your idea of what it is to be a man so rigid?

You say you do not know how a man thinks. How can you know that what you are thinking is wrong for a man?

Why is your idea of what it is to be a woman so expansive?