This makes me so angry. I’m not “anti” or “phobic” anything and I’ve essentially been called that for using this forum. All this transgender stuff was completely new to me less than a year ago and I have tried to “educate myself” as we’re always told to do and I haven't found any information that adequately explains what “being a woman” or “being a man” is supposed to feel like.
I’ve always thought the only thing that makes me female is my body. Living in a society that treats me in a certain way because of that body has shaped many of my experiences. In particular, becoming a parent has impacted my life in ways that it hasn’t impacted my husband and I do have those experiences in common with other women who have children, but there is NOTHING that I feel is innate in my character that relates to my sex. I don’t believe I am any more likely to have something in common with a woman than a man and I don’t know what a “gender identity” is. Any explanations I’ve seen have relied on stereotypes that I object to and feel are sexist and downright offensive.
I teach my children that there are no such things as girls’ things or boys’ things and they can watch the football, wearing pink while they play with dolls and dinosaurs but I also teach them about the realities of their bodies and mine and my husband’s in an age appropriate way (hazard of having no lock on the bathroom door means no privacy).
I wasn’t brought up with gender roles strongly enforced but I appreciate that people who have, may have difficulties breaking them and could develop issues with their bodies and they absolutely should be supported and should not be discriminated against. However, the idea that everyone has an innate sense of gender just doesn’t make sense to me because I don’t have one. How does that make me transphobic?
I strongly object to many of the assumptions that are made about me because of my sex. I’ve been on the receiving end of sexism, misogyny and had my earnings impacted through the patriarchal system that assumes a mother must always be the main caregiver. I also had my own #MeToo experiences in my single days and am scared for my children who will have access to porn and sexualised images of women so easily as they get older in a way I never had to deal with.
Mumsnet is the only place I’ve found where people seem to talk openly about this and explain things in a way that makes sense to me. I went to uni and learnt a bit about Post Modern theory and Queer theory (although I didn’t pay much attention as it all seemed a bit too much like it was disappearing up its own backside) but just thought of it like lots of other philosophical theories, they were good thought experiments which you could use to analyse a book or a play, but the real world is the real world.
Sex (male, female or those with a DSD) is an objective reality and can not be changed. If some people feel they can make it through the day better altering their bodies and adopting stereotypes associated with the opposite sex, they should be allowed to do that without prejudice. But why does it also necessitate teaching children that those stereotypes are fixed and body modifications are inevitable if they don’t conform? Why does it mean removing safeguarding? Why does it mean eliminating sex-segregated spaces for vulnerable people? Why does it mean changing the definition of words like woman, girl, man, boy, gay, straight, he and she?
Live your life but don’t define me or my children. I don’t identify with the stereotypes of being a woman. I object to them. Don’t call me cis. I will not judge you so don’t judge me.
I am a regular lurker and have rarely seen any genuinely transphobic comments on here, unless transphobic simply means not unquestioningly adhering to an ideology that nobody seems to want to explain.