This is a good thread about female trans allies

[Doyoumind]

twitter.com/overpow_erin_g/status/1156003798898241543?s=19

Thoughtful insights into how some women get drawn into the wrong side of the debate.

ScottishJenn

I am also Scottish. I work with the public and every day deal with very vulnerable people. Elderly people with dementia, learning disabled people, peole who are refugees.

To support these people I need plain, straight forward language grounded in reality. I need to be able to signpost them to services grounded in reality where women's services are for actual women and men's for actual men.

In reality human beings cannot change sex. Transwomen are not women. Not at all. Not in the slightest. They may be vulnerable in their own way but they are not the only, or the most vulnerable in society. Your ideological position is based on a flat out lie.

You are entitled to live your life according to whatever unsubstantiated belief you so wish but you are imposing that belief on others who do not share it. That causes huge problems for very, very vulnerable people.

I ask, no I beg that you stop and think about them. Their needs, their safety, privacy and dignity. These people do not believe TWAW, they have no idea what you're blethering on about. If they see an XY trans person in women's spaces they will be scared and confused and likely excluded, or worse if your movement gets its way, criminalised and vilified. Please, please stop and think about vulnerable people who need plain language and sex (as determined at conception and observed at birth) based privacy. Laws need to be understood by and work for all, not just followers of Queer Theory.

I would also like you to explain what privacy, safety and dignity you are actually being asked to give up. Can you give specific examples

sure

Privacy and Dignity
I don't want to get naked in front of males. I don't want to have a shit with a male in the next cubical, with gaps above and below. I just don't. Expecting me to share toilets and changing rooms with males compromises my privacy and dignity

Safety
We know that mixed sex spaces put women aat increased risk of attack - for example

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-pests-target-women-in-mixed-changing-rooms-x3vw2lnv8

That's why if you woke up tomorrow and found that your personhood had magically been downloaded into a biologically male body, you wouldn't instantly know yourself to be male.

'Personhood'.

You mean personality.

And strangely enough, why on earth are we talking about impossible spiritual ideas of waking up in another body? That's a quasi religious straw man!!!

Theoretically could I be Tom Hanks in 'Big' anymore than I could wake up as a table tomorrow?

This argument is complete nonsense.

It. Can't. Happen.

You. Only. Have. One. Body.

You are either male or female and this has nothing to do with personality or some religious notion of gender.

Trans women are women because womanhood is not determined by biology.

The definition of 'woman' is an adult human female. The definition of 'transwoman' is a male-to-female transsexual. 'Womanhood' is the state or condition of being a woman (an adult human female).

People can't change sex, therefore a transwoman is not a woman because a woman is female and a transwoman is male. Saying that 'womanhood' is nothing to do with biology is redefining the language. This would have to be done with the agreement of the majority of the people who use the language, not just because a few activists wish to eliminate the category of 'woman'.

White people like to appear oh so woke by citing brown-people traditions, without knowing much about them at all. I've given a quick and clumsy explanation as to how you are usually so very, very wrong. Go and actually live with these cultures and you'd see how quickly your trans-ideas fall away.

You're right that it was quick and clumsy. You've also made a lot of assumptions. I have lived in America and 2 sub Saharan African countries and spent over a year working in India. But much, much more importantly than that I have actually listened to people who belong to these cultures. Their views, in the present, are what actually matters (not your clumsy waffling about yoga and mythology). I suggest you do some reading up - Alok Vaid-Menon would be a good place to start. You could also look at the ways in which Native American two-spirit folks have been systematically erased from history, despite their importance in indigenous culture.

The point isn't to draw direct comparisons between these different expressions of gender and the transgender movement today. The point is to recognise that across the world, many cultures have happily recognised that gender is distinct from sex, until this recognition was attacked by European colonialism. To insist that gender doesn't exist and shouldn't be recognised is a form of white supremacy, because it is the insistence that our belief system should be upheld over any other culture's.

It's personality that's not determined by biology.

Because it's no good saying it's about gender identity not sex, dimwits. And then demand that you access everything on the basis of sex.

Wow, nutshell!

VivienneHolt

My answer? Trans women are women because womanhood is not determined by biology.

Have you any idea how absolutely fucking insulting that statement is? Your identity is precious and wonderful, but women's reality and identity can be just discarded as unimportant. It makes crystal clear that nobody gives a shit about women or their safety or dignity or even their lives.

Steady on Juells

I’m expecting Vivienne to come back any minute with a non circular, non stereotypical explanation of what womanhood is determined by

I’m sure it’s all going to be fine

Saying that 'womanhood' is nothing to do with biology is redefining the language.

So? Language is redefined all the time.

Language reflects culture - it doesn't create it. We aren't bound to oppose trans rights because of what it says in the dictionary.

This would have to be done with the agreement of the majority of the people who use the language, not just because a few activists wish to eliminate the category of 'woman'.

The category of woman will not be eliminated just because we understand it to include trans women.

And is it just a few activists? Or are we actually in a situation where the majority are in favour of trans rights...? And if we aren't quite there yet, who's to say we aren't getting there? Why shouldn't those who believe in trans rights campaign for their beliefs?

Have you any idea how absolutely fucking insulting that statement is? Your identity is precious and wonderful, but women's reality and identity can be just discarded as unimportant. It makes crystal clear that nobody gives a shit about women or their safety or dignity or even their lives.

Its an ideology that places the reality of males above the reality of females.

And yet, its gender critical arguments which point out the cult like behaviour of forcing everyone to say something you know not to be true and be in denial of biology which is misgyonistic?

Yep. Ok.

I get it.

Have you any idea how absolutely fucking insulting that statement is? Your identity is precious and wonderful, but women's reality and identity can be just discarded as unimportant. It makes crystal clear that nobody gives a shit about women or their safety or dignity or even their lives.

I'm a woman and biologically female and I'm not insulted.

I don't believe your identity as a woman is compromised by another woman's identity. I would like to see an explanation for why it is without you retreating into bluster about how offended you are.

Gender is a separate, innate aspect of your identity.

Citations, please.

Or is this acknowledgement that you're following a dualist religious belief of gendered souls?

Trans women are women because womanhood is not determined by biology. Gender is a separate, innate aspect of your identity.

Since when has womanhood not been determined by biology?

Who gets to define and impose these definitions in societies?

According to your definition, gender is akin to a soul that inhabits every living human body and completely separate from physiology and biology?

Can we scientifically test for and measure this gender soul or essence inside people?
Can we determine through scientific and medical tests what a person's gender identity is?

If there is no accurate or scientific way to ascertain what this gender soul or essence is, does that imply that belief in gender identity is a matter of faith and therefore the entire movement of gender identity and transgenderism should be classed as a religious and belief system like other spiritual and faith based ideologies?

...and spent over a year working in India. But much, much more importantly than that I have actually listened to people who belong to these cultures...

And I AM of these cultures, much more so than you could ever be. I really don't need lessons from you on what I should read. I wrote a quick summary of extremely difficult to understand concepts; because I had to go out. So yes, it was quick. But I know what I am talking about. Gender is ephemeral: it has no concrete existence, and anyway, why should I take some man's word for it that he's a woman? Crazy!

I never understand what the phrase trans rights mean. I thought trans people had the same rights as everyone else ?

Language is redefined all the time? Indeed. And when it happens by one (dominant) group dictating that it should to another (subordinate) group, there are problems.
You are pointing out the issue, not resolving it.

I'm a woman and biologically female and I'm not insulted

Same

And people still saying "haven't got an answer"
think you're proving Vivienne's point just fine when she says "don't pretend you have never seen an answer as you have"
she's just given one and it's still la la not listening

So? Language is redefined all the time.

And a lot of us are objecting to the re-definition of the word "woman" and of womanhood. Womanhood does not include males, no matter what any particular male feels or thinks.

We're fighting this. And you can call us bigots until the cows come home - we're still fighting it.

Saying that 'womanhood' is nothing to do with biology is redefining the language.

So? Language is redefined all the time.

Language reflects culture - it doesn't create it. We aren't bound to oppose trans rights because of what it says in the dictionary.

This isn't strictly true.

Language evolves over time organically.

Where you get huge shifts in language usage and shifting meaning which are FORCED and not organic this isn't a cultural change but a deliberate political technique to control the population and hide the unpallatable.

This ISN'T a reflection of culture. This is a power play.

The use of political euphesiasm is very historically very dubious and comes from the top down rather than organically from the public. This is why its insideous and can be actively dangerous.

Its about power and control.

Fair's fair Vivienne , I answered your questions, would you mind answering mine?

If womanhood is not defined by biology, what is is defined by?

Control language and you control people.

Organic language change isn't about controlling thoughts or people.

Gender is a separate, innate aspect of your identity. That's why if you woke up tomorrow and found that your personhood had magically been downloaded into a biologically male body, you wouldn't instantly know yourself to be male. That's why so many cultures in the world have for centuries recognised gender expressions which exist outside of the sex binary.

Nobody has ever 'magically' woken up in a different body one morning. We all have one body which we have from birth to death. That body changes as we grow up and grow old, but it is always the same body. Nobody in the history of the world has ever had their body changed overnight into that of the opposite sex.

Some people feel unhappy with their body for various reasons. Some people feel revulsion at the sight of their own genitalia and wish they had a body of the opposite sex. This doesn't mean that they 'are' in some way the opposite sex, or that they 'should be' the opposite sex, or even that they have an opposite sex 'gender identity'. It means they have a psychological condition which leads them to reject the appearance and the reality of their body.

I disagree with your definition of 'gender'. Gender is the set of cultural and social norms associated with each sex. To have a 'gender identity' or to support the existence of such a notion is to say that you agree with the idea that certain behaviours and standards of appearance should be associated with people of one sex or the other. Is that really what you're arguing for?

Thanks for engaging in this discussion, anyway, Vivienne. I hope @ScottishJenn will come back and engage some more as well.

And I simply want, (sometimes), to be around women who have shared the same things I have - periods, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, sexism, dv, rape, mothering, etc. In those situations, I want to be able to discuss my female experience and no, I don't want transwomen in women-only space.

This. I just came back from the pool where I had my aqua fit lesson. In the changing room were women of all shapes and sizes and ages, happily getting undressed. putting on bras and knickers, chatting with each other. Mostly older women. Some male-bodied transwoman coming in there and claiming they were a woman? Inconceivable! A real woman would never be so inconsiderate.

I don't believe your identity as a woman is compromised by another woman's identity. I would like to see an explanation for why it is without you retreating into bluster about how offended you are

Yes, why is our lived experiences as a woman to be dismissed, the fact I DO strongly have a female self an opinion one that should be automatically dismissed?
Yes, my biology says I'm female. That's not all it is though.
Oh and just as usual how come it's back to define woman circular thread when it was originally a thread about how trans allies being so called handmaidens", they always go the same way lol

I often wonder how physically disabled people might feel about the ‘born in the wrong body’ narrative