TWAW

[Billi77]

Thought it might be an idea to start a thread for women who support TWAW. I understand ‘Feminism chat’ should also include us and give us our own space?

The vast majority of women who are trying the hold the line of women’s rights started from a position of being nice, being kind, being inclusive. It was not enough. Then they started saying ok, but can we discuss safety, privacy, dignity for all. Or ok but can we discuss the statistics that are used to decide x,y,z very important things. Or ok but these female health issues are now using language that makes them inaccessible. Then they realised that being nice and kind and inclusive had resulted in being a sub type of their own sex class and that the rules had been rewritten everywhere which put women at increased risk and they are not allowed to discuss it or question it.

Being nice got us to this point. It’s not phobic or nasty to want safeguarding for all. It’s not exclusionary to talk about female bodies. It’s not ridiculous to want sex specific statistics to be sex specific. Women are not monsters for wanting to retain hard won existing rights and protections. Women want everyone to feel safe and not suffer discrimination. None of that means we support one group gaining at the expense of others.

if you define 'woman' as 'anyone who says they are a woman', then the word 'woman' no longer means anything at all.

And bang! Just like that, all the legal protections for women and girls disappear.

*Nellle
*
Your position is yours to own, but it is not an acceptable one.

And I am not talking about it being unacceptable to us on here.

It is unacceptable to the trans movement. It is nowhere near what they are asking for.

They don't want us to use the word woman for them and then deal with separate issues later. They want complete and utter acceptance and for everyone to believe that are women and to afford them women's rights and spaces.

You are being as 'transphobic' as the rest of us.

That's a nice idea that if we'd just agree to politely look the other way or be generous about letting the word woman and female be used by any male who wants to that would be the end of all the issues. I don't think that is the actual issue at all.

The issue is the demand, and it is a demand, that all males who choose to so self identity have the exact same right to be in all spaces designated for female single sex provision, and that the mixed sex term woman should replace any ability for female humans to name themselves as a sex class, or to have provision reserved for them that is single sex.

This mixed sex at all times definition of women then leads to:

female people not able to go to a refuge because their trauma and PTSD or their faith or culture or disability makes it impossible to live in a building with male people

female people having to avoid health care or discharge themselves from hospital wards if it is impossible for them to be alongside male people in a state of undress or receive intimate care from a male

female people unable to go into female toilets in public places because they are not able to go into spaces to undress and toilet where male people are - which restricts them from access to public spaces, and many of the females who would be most affected would come from groups already not easily accessing public spaces

female people unable to use the female only swim times or yoga times etc set aside for females who could only access swimming when male people weren't present - and now can't use them any more because male people are now present.

female children staying off school when they have periods and not drinking all day because they cannot have a toilet space where male children aren't present

I could go on and on. It goes much, much deeper than just being kind about language, there are huge issues of equality and access here for females that can't just be put under the carpet.

But, what if it WAS only a word? If we managed to somehow all agree that 'woman' could be claimed by all, but safe spaces and sport were protected for cis women, would that be enough?

I think we've already shown you here that this cannot happen - and you need to stop referring to us as "cis", because it makes us a subset of our own sex.

Maybe if we gave up a bit of language, we wouldn't have to give up all the rest?

The problem is that requires giving up the bit of language necessary to clearly define rights in legislation and communicate medical information.

My need to have a clear, neutral word to describe sex has nothing to do with identity.

Nellie, first of all I'd like to thank you for engaging. I will ask that you don't use Cis to describe women. Many of us find the term offensive. We are not a subset of our own sex, women is perfectly fine.

*I don't know of any 'general' attributes that all transwomen share with cis women, except that they want to be called women8

Women do not "want to be called women". They are women. A woman is an adult human female. There is no such thing as a CIS woman outside of trans rhetoric, and as it stands it de-centres women in their own category of human being, and that is simply not on.

Hi VickyEadieofThigh

"then the AGPs came along and the activists who said we couldn't call ourselves women, it had to be "cis" women and we couldn't talk about our bodies because that's upsetting and exclusionary."

Who's told you that? Neither me nor any woman I know has been told we can't call ourselves women. I've seen lots of people tweeting about it, I've seen articles about it from partisan sources. But it's always someone claiming soon women will have to call themselves womb havers ... reminds me a bit off when DM readers say "we'll have to sing ba-ba multicoloured sheep next!" Will we... really? I'm sure you will be able to show me some examples. I know JK's tweet was in response to one.

But I'm afraid that if we're starting to be labelled in a way we don't like... Well, why should trans people have to suffer the same thing? Can't we share the word so that we can sort the nitty-gritty with a mutual respect?

This crucial question - if it ever gets an answer - tends to get something like "They'll have to get over it".

In other words, some females will have to be excluded from services and public spaces, so that males can be included.

Even though those females will be in the main those already struggling, vulnerable and with lesser access in society.

Where is the kindness to them? Where's the value of inclusion? Where is the value of intersectionality? Where is the value of diversity? Where is the value of equality? How is this justifiable?

@Nellle

Hi Old Crone,

I don't know of any 'general' attributes that all transwomen share with cis women, except that they want to be called women.

And if we do that, we might get over this almighty stumbling block and we can discuss the safety issue at the heart of this debate without turning one another into enemies.

No.

No no no no no no no no no no.

Wanting to be called something doesn't actually make you that something, you know. You do understand that, don't you? It's not just a matter of linguistics either. It's our entire existence. Our entire world. Everything women have built for themselves will be open to anyone who says that magic phrase "I am a woman". Anyone. Absolutely anyone. No guards at the gate. No recourse. No option for those of us who don't want to share space with masculine bodies. Nothing for us at all. You are handing me over to them on a plate, Nellie.

Does it feel good?

Thank you maudspellbody

I make being an arse an art form Nellle. But you've misunderstood my post ( and I appreciate you will be fielding a lot here,so I'm not making an issue of that)

I wasn't talking about the threatening abuse towards JKR. I was talking about the arguments peddled by the bearded ginger MP, and others of his mindset. They might not be hurling suggestions involving cocks at her, but they are 100% minimizing and dismissing women's rights. I mentioned Jana Cornell - more than once she was subjected to a long, long string of tweets dismissing her experience of female genital mutilation, because 'TWAW'. A Canadian representative told her it was transphobic to talk about it.

You concede 'the word', you remove the ability of the women to describe their oppression in simple terms. It's not 'just' language. Language is power. You are asking women to cede the power they have to those who already have more. That's just not a credible feminist standpoint.

But, what if it WAS only a word? If we managed to somehow all agree that 'woman' could be claimed by all, but safe spaces and sport were protected for cis women, would that be enough

No!

'Transwoman' is the best that can be offered, I'm afraid, and it also best describes the reality. Transwomen are 'other' to women, whether they like or accept it or not.

I'm not flouncing - need to walk the dog! I'll be back.

Thank you so much to those of you who responded to my questions and search for somewhere to go with my opinion on this crucial debate.

But, what if it WAS only a word? If we managed to somehow all agree that 'woman' could be claimed by all, but safe spaces and sport were protected for cis women, would that be enough

Furthermore one group cannot enforce a redefinition and effective colonisation of a universally accepted and scientifically understood category of human being that the word Woman denotes.

But mostly I’m keen to meet feminists online who are trans-inclusive as I have heard a lot from those who are not . Given my RL experience outside of my immediate social circles, this feels massively disproportionate.

Can I ask where you have seen all these Rowling supporting feminists? so I can join them Because just about every mainstream feminist fb group, twitter account, feminist website seems to agree with you that TWAW? Is it that you only know feminist through Mumsnet?

You say that you struggle to see your transmen friends as men, but can I gently point out that lots of males will feel the same way? For example if one of them did something stupid or had a partner do something stupid (which is often the case with female prisoners) would you really want them to go to a male prison for example? Prisoners who need extra security get housed together even though that section is where the well know paedophiles and rapists are.

Would you be happy with your daughter transitioning to male and using the boys' showers and locker rooms at school? Competing against males in sports? Having access to chest binders and "packers" at school without your knowledge?

If she struggles with her sexuality and joins LGBT groups at school she'll be presented with literature that implies that girls think a certain way and so do boys... are you comfortable with that? I hope I haven't come off as aggressive, when you have dozens of posters arguing you it can feel like a pile on. I do genuinely care about transexuals but I don't support transgender activism as it feels incompatible with feminism to me.

But can we call TWW? Fucking yes. Why the hell not? Maybe if we gave up a bit of language, we wouldn't have to give up all the rest?

Because women have been limited and endangers by a load of social assumptions and conventions projected onto our biological sex that in reality have nothing to do with it. As a woman I reject them utterly. The only valid definition of a woman is biological. The services and support women need are firstly those that are directly required for their biology, secondly those to mitigate constraints caused by that biology such as impact of breastfeeding periods on a career, and thirdly those to mitigate and erase the stereotypes attached to people with that biology.

To say TWAW is to claim that actually no, biology isn't really part of being a woman, actually it's all those stereotypes that's the important thing about being a woman.

So given my view that those gender stereotypes are something damaging to get rid of, saying TWAW is giving up something huge, it's giving up the ability to say a woman can ever be more than the gender stereotypes our culture has built around her.

But, what if it WAS only a word? If we managed to somehow all agree that 'woman' could be claimed by all, but safe spaces and sport were protected for cis women, would that be enough?

If it's only a word, why not ask the males who want to claim it to use another word instead?

Woman means adult human female. It's not yours or anyone else's to give away out of kindness or otherwise. So no, I won't 'share' it.

But, what if it WAS only a word? If we managed to somehow all agree that 'woman' could be claimed by all, but safe spaces and sport were protected for cis women, would that be enough?

How can any legal or scientific word be claimed by all?

You are also ignoring the difficult fact that women need sex based rights regardless of how they identify. You can't escape the need for birth control simply by declaring yourself non-binary.

To say TWAW is to claim that actually no, biology isn't really part of being a woman, actually it's all those stereotypes that's the important thing about being a woman.

Yes, I think there is no getting away from this.

@Nellle I started where you are in that I wasnt really concerned with language and changing rooms mainly because every changing room I've ever been to with my kids is unisex anyway. Equally I grew up with friends who came out in their teens and one is a drag queen and I've shared toilets etc..

What I cared about was refuges, prisons and sport but that's not acceptable because they wont discuss the issue and all relevant data and biological fact is dismissed as trans phobic. It then made me questioned why my starting point was middle ground when it is clear they never have any intention of meeting us there.

There will always be women who have been 'r adical'feminist but i suspect the majority of us have found ourselves placed in this position because you come to the realisation that TRA and MRA's hate us for what we are and I for one will not roll over and leave my daughters open to further discrimination.

Yes, this has got nothing to do with radical feminism as such. It is an issue which has united people from all walks and perspectives. the common denominator they know what a woman is, and they know that women and girls require certain 'protections' on account of their biology and physicality. It is about dignity and privacy, and fairness, as well as about safety.

Nellle, the narrative changed from TW identifying as women to actually being women. For me, that was a tipping point.

I can certainly cope with saying that TW identify as women. It's sexist, but an accurate description of how they feel. I won't say that TW are W because that is inaccurate. They are men who identify as women. I won't lie about it and resent being pressured to do so.