How can I argue this: female without ovaries etc

[omikron]

If the dictionary definition of female is:

1
Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.

Then when a TRA says 'well what about women that don't have ovaries?'

*is fruitless

I see User’s point.

I used to lurk. It wasn’t feminists entering into debate-in-the-comments with TRAs who were clearly not arguing in good faith that convinced me. It was seeing their arguments set out at length in articles, blog posts etc. TRAs don’t do so well at the longform rebuttal because their arguments are made of straw, they are much better at the pithy ‘gotcha’ or thought-terminating cliche mentioned above.

This is why I’m not convinced by the ‘engage for the lurkers’ argument. We all have finite time and mental health. We should keep talking, but it’s okay to be discerning about how and when.

I see it as a bit like how Richard Dawkins doesn't debate creationists - not because he’s worried about losing the argument and being publicly humiliated, but because he recognises that they’re arguing in a different, non-rational sphere and nothing constructive will ever come out of it. The conversation will move on without them if they only have shouting to contribute.

The flowchart attached has been on the internet forever but is still pretty useful, I think.

I don’t think being a hidden camera pervert is unique to any gender or sexuality.

That's not true. Men are responsible for 99.1% of sex offences in the UK. So in a group of a thousand sex offenders statistically only nine of them will be women. Transition doesn't reduce the risk posed by males.

@BernardBlacksWineIceLolly

Sorry you are absolutely right and it is an increased risk under this new era of mixed changing rooms.

I guess the point in my head was that hidden cameras are still a risk regardless of how M&S resolve this particular issue. But you’re right and I’m wrong.

That’s the sort of thing we need to be hammering M&S and the like with. What policies and procedures can they put in place to secure against it. they should be motivated to as well, that’s going to be one hell of a legal bill if they don’t prevent it.

Yeah - I’m backing down on the hidden camera one - Got that very wrong!

Jesus, the time and energy TRAs force us to spend on this gaslighting bollocks.

Users may I politely suggest that if you are so concerned about wasting feminist energy on this issue, why have you derailed this thread? Perhaps create a template for an m&s complaint? Perhaps join your local ReSisters group? Write your mp? I'm assuming you haven't done this work yet, so forgive me if I have mis-activisted you.

Any accusation that you throw at women in this thread or women in general that we just aren't doing enough - please just don't. Don't. We are doing loads. Instead of criticism, lift other women up with your own talents and skillset. Berating women isn't that.

I am of a species that has 46 chromosomes.
If I have one extra chromosome I am still of the species that has 46 chromosomes.
Despite having 47.
I am not a daffodil or a fruitfly suddenly.
How do we know?
This is because there are other criteria than just this one, chromosomes, that allow me to be categorised accurately and unequivocally excluded from the wrong categories

Almost every human has chromosomes, genitals, reproductive tract and gonads which all are concordant.
There are two varieties of sex.
The male version of these characteristics is easily distinguishable from the female.

If ONE criteria is missing, the others that remain tell the tale.

Absence of one single characteristic is inconsequential.

PRESENCE of ANY opposite sex characteristic is not the same as missing ovaries.

If you leave the postcode off an envelope it still leaves the address remaining.
If you don't have ovaries? your uterus, vagina, clitoris and double X chromosomes tell the remainder of the tale.

Being OF THE CLASS that has several characteristics is as much about being unequivocally excluded from the opposite class by virtue of having none of THEIR defining characteristics.

And it goes without saying, that even if it's been surgically removed it always was and is still your innate characteristic.

People only pretend to be confused about this.
We learn as toddlers which shaped wooden block fits in which shape hole.
We learn how to categorise, which criteria matter (shape, size) and which are irrelevant (colour) to deciding where a block fits.
Adults trying to persuade you it's terribly complicated aren't fooling anyone.

I don’t think being a hidden camera pervert is unique to any gender or sexuality.

Agree. It's SEX of a person that matters here.

@Themyscira

Because derailing this kind of thread is diverting energy to the right places!

But I hear you and will leave it now, I’ve said my bit and thanks for your constructive comments and responses

*Are you a human with two (or more) X chromosomes?

If yes then your sex is biologically female.*

Klinefelter Syndrome. Men can be XXY.

Interesting re the women do it too thing on hidden cameras,

And it's a tech issue not a men issue.

See others have covered that though! Thank you

Intersex is a disorder a thing gone wrong, like being born blind. There are number of different DSD combinations, and I don't think it's terribly fair to obsess over their genetic make up.

In most cases, they are raised as a particular sex, and it must be truly awful to discover that you have genetic and hormonal elements that mean you are actually different to what you were brought up as.

Disability does not disprove basic facts about humans, like 2 ams, 2 legs, 2 sexes

LightsInOtherPeoplesHouses That is correct. PP said that 2 or more Xs means female, but the real divide is whether you have a Y chromosome or not.

If you have at least one Y chromosome, you are male, even in the event that your Y chromosome is faulty in some way. And, though very rare, sometimes women only have one X chromosome.

And the great thing about chromosomes is that they can be objectively verified, unlike a person's internal feelings.

Argh, OP, totally behind you pushing back on this, it’s not trivial, and I really disagree that it just sets feminists up as arguing every point for the sake of arguing. I will push back on this awful, dehumanising gotcha everytime I see it, because as a woman who’s had her ovaries removed, I find my being weaponised in this debate utterly shameful.

I will NOT be de-sexed by people implying that the loss of my female reproductive organs changes my being a woman in one tiny little degree, and shitting over my pain at the illness that led to that happening. I’m not an illustration in order to feature as a point of validation for someone else’s identity crisis, I was born a girl, I became a woman, and will stay that way until I die with or without my ovaries and uterus, so people doing this can fuck right off!

Why do people who do this in the name of making other people feel better about their bodies never give one tiny, shiny shite about the pain of people living in bodies like mine? (Because older, non fertile women are meh, of course, and never Brave or Stunning)

Usernumbers1234 wrote - "How people choose to define things is irrelevant to the end game, which (at least I thought) was to find a workable system that all sides are happy with."

For TRAs, the end game is to redefine transwomen as women in every way, enabling transwomen to gain unlimited access to everything intended for women.

The definition of woman is not a pointless semantic argument in an echo chamber. Governments and other organisations are basing their policies and actions on their understanding of the definition of woman.

Good post Vesuvia that is the crux of it

This video does it perfectly

Barackers post need bookmarking

I go for: women are the class of people whose bodies have been shaped by evolutionary forces in such a way as to enable the gestation of human young during the fertile phase of life.

I thought this was an interesting question omikron: shame it got derailed.

I read a ‘problem page’ once where a woman whose partner was trans complained about the fact that her (clearly transphobic) dog reacted to the partner as being male (dog was frightened of men but not women). Dogs know, squirrels know, badgers know, but in these mad times we have to struggle to find a definition of the utterly obvious!

My dog actually prefers men to women. Perhaps I should get her to try to explain the definition she’s applying. She seems to be able to tell the difference with ease.

Also, I think there are two issues that the TRA agenda deliberately conflates.

1- what are women, the class?

And 2- how do I know if this particular human, in front of me, is a member of that class?

The first question requires an answer focusing on class attributes, with reference to a reproductive role; the second, an assessment of the totality of the characteristics of the particular individual, bringing in the issues barracker referred to above, amongst others - possession of ovaries, uterus, vagina, clitoris, natural hormone levels, chromosomes, gamete production, fingerprint characteristics, bone density, etc etc etc. Not every woman will have a uterus, for example. But the totality of the characteristics of an individual woman without a uterus will still be such as to put it beyond doubt that she is a member of the class of people whose bodies have been shaped by evolutionary forces to gestate young, ie a member of the ‘woman’ class.

(Which is why she’ll bear the burden of unpaid domestic labour, and in some countries will have her genitals mutilated, regardless of whether she’s got a uterus or not, because the reality is we all know perfectly well what she is.)

The question I have is why are do so many people find this compelling?

I don't mean people with an agenda. But I know quite a number of nice people who hear this and think that yes, it makes sense. We'd not say that a women who had a hysterectomy was no longer a women, so surely it, and other simply physical attributes which could similarly be affected, can't be an integral part of being a women, and so it must be that being a woman is about some sort of non-physical thing.

As someone who works in education, I would really like to know what went wrong.

I think that there is actually quite a commonly held worldview that a woman without the correct reproductive organs in good working order is less of a woman. So I can easily see how some people find it quite persuasive.

It’s shitty patriarchal nonsense of course, but that’s par for the course with believing in genderism.

We are a conceptual idea in the head of men, and are whatever they decide.

Obv.

Isn't it funny for thousands of years who ever delivered the baby took a look and said you have a boy or girl.
This system worked so well no one changed it.
However since the internet this has suddenly become complicated.