Transwomen are women, transmen are men and non-binary people are valid...

[MrsPeacockInTheLibrary]

I keep seeing this phrase pasted everywhere, and I know it is discussed on here lots as well. I wanted to have somewhere to try and understand it and reactions to it, focusing on the male/ female men/women thing. I also mean no offence to any oppressed or minority groups in the language I use in this post. I am trying to explore how false binaries are used and how people use equivalences and how appropriate it. (I am confused, really, and it shows!)

So, we can say the following: Men are humans, women are humans, [any ethnicity] are humans, [any other category] are humans.

But humans are organised (rightly or wrongly, in many cases) into binaries.

So, I can't say:

Black are white/ white are black
Disabled are able/ able are disabled
Young are old/ old are young

Then, non-biological ones: (nationality/ class?)
rich are poor/ poor are rich** slightly trite example
Americans are French/ French are Americans

So, presumably, most people would agree - I can't say:

men are women/ women are men

This binary is arguably the most fundamental of all of the ones listed above, as our basic biology.

I could not claim to be, as a white woman, a black women. It would be hugely offensive and inappropriate. Any more than I could try and pass myself off as 18 again.

Yet, saying "transwoman are women" i.e. men are women seems to affirm that it is possible to overcome/ dispel that binary - even though all of the others clearly can't be. And this particular binary is the most fundamental and set - more than our skin colour or place of birth or wealth - our DNA and biology.

Well done if you have made it this far. I have not meant to offend if I am perceived as having used crude or reductive binaries and language. I have recently become much more GC and I am trying to organise and understand what I think.

No idea where to go with: intersex, biology is a spectrum, sex is not binary, or the anger I feel seeing gender/sex interchanged - head too full of it.

TLDR: You can't say transwoman are women because you can't say "men are women" - because you can't say that for any other human binary, no matter how rudimentary.

Intersex is a disorder . In the same way as you can say humans have 2 eyes and 10 toes. There will be people without eyes or toes due to developmental disorders

It's not comprehensible. It's just a thought-numbing Orwellian mantra, as meaningful as 'war is peace'.

I've no idea what the 'non-binary people are valid' is supposed to mean. Is anyone saying that 'identity' is any less or more 'valid' than any other?

www.jesusandmo.net/comic/valid/

It doesn't make any sense, and they know it. It's why #nodebate is parroted so often.

And the idea of trans men being men is such an afterthought. If trans men are really men, presumably they should have to go in men's prisons? Presumably they should only be allowed to compete in men's sports? (Wikipedia suggests most trans men athletes are still competing with women.)

I would love to see the 'progressives' who parrot these mantras trying to defend placing a small, biological female who hasn't had any surgery or hormone treatment into a men's prison.

Thank you everyone.

A FTM trans person would still not benefit from primogeniture would they?

If the Duke of Windsor's elder sister decided she was a man - in law, she is not suddenly getting the title.

No she wouldn’t! wanders off muttering about having cake and eating it

It's not comprehensible. It's just a thought-numbing Orwellian mantra, as meaningful as 'war is peace'.

This.

From last Thursday's statement by the Welsh Government.

gov.wales/written-statement-statement-support-wales-trans-communities

"We believe trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid. We restate our support for trans people’s right to self-identification."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3963313-Statement-of-support-for-Wales-Trans-Communities

[quote FOIrequester]From last Thursday's statement by the Welsh Government.

gov.wales/written-statement-statement-support-wales-trans-communities

"We believe trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid. We restate our support for trans people’s right to self-identification."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3963313-Statement-of-support-for-Wales-Trans-Communities[/quote]
Exactly FOI - this is increasingly where I keep seeing it. And I am teacher, also, so it is made very clear what our Union position is with no dissenters allowed.

And, this leads to my second things. I think the phrase itself is contradictory. By saying transwoman are woman you are proving you need to say it - that you need the qualification. Otherwise, just say women are women - and there is the problem. I might as well just say "women are men" "humans are men" and let's cut out the rest.

I've been wondering a lot about the 'valid/validated' thing. As far as I can tell, trans men and women say they have been 'validated' when someone identifies them as the gender they wish to be perceived as. Which speaks to me of a disconnect between the claim that their gender is some personal, internal thing and the reality that they wish for others to recognise it. But then in the next breath we get a lecture about how we shouldn't be assuming people's pronouns.I suppose what they would perceive to be my 'privilege' is that I don't need someone else to confirm to me that I am perceived as a woman, because I just am one. But since what I'm talking about there is my sex then it's not the same thing - can someone perceive how I feel about the relationship between my biological sex and how I feel on the inside just by looking at me, and does it matter if they do or not? If they're wrong, does it actually make any difference to how I experience my life. I assume perhaps the need to call nonbinary people 'valid' comes from the fact that no one is ever going to look at someone and say 'they are a non-binary person' because no one really knows what that means, what it looks like, etc. So they have to have a slogan to explicitly validate them. There does seem to be a lack of clarity within the trans community about whether how you are perceived is important or not. (Sorry, that's a bit of a jumble, I'm not sure I've quite nailed that line of thought yet!)

@MrsPeacockInTheLibrary

Thank you everyone.

A FTM trans person would still not benefit from primogeniture would they?

If the Duke of Windsor's elder sister decided she was a man - in law, she is not suddenly getting the title.

I would love someone to test this in a court of law, I’d even donate towards the legal fees!

Its an odd slogan. Especially the 'non binary people are valid'..along with 'transpeople are people!'. Has anyone ever denied this?! The fcus on claiming GC people say transpeople/nonbinary people do not exist..is weird as I have not once seen that in all my years of talking and reading on the topic.

Also I think trasnwomen are transwomen, transmen are transmen, and non binary people are..non binary.

They clearly use the Transwomen are women etc etc mantra because once enough people are saying it it will be difficult to keep them out of women’s spaces, which is their eventual aim.

The primogeniture thing is true, transmen can't benefit. To me this is one of the strongest indicators that a) men's interests are at the heart of the laws on this, and b) no one in power actually believes that you can't 'fake' being transgender, as is often claimed. I'd even go so far as to say that it indicates that those in power don't really believe that transgender is a 'thing' at all.

Part of the problem with this discussion is that not all of those things are binaries.

You can for example be a citizen of two nations. Ethnicities are not binary. Even race isn't really binary, people can be mixed race and race is defined by convention, so isn't the same in every place.

Sometimes the claim that male/female isn't a binary is drawing on these other examples to justify itself.

The only way it can ever make a tiny % of sense is if you change the meanings of the words woman, female, man, male from biological sex to magical gender identity.

And it's happening, a slow stealthy crawl to replace biological sex with gender at every turn

But yes, claiming that male people are actually women, and female people are actually men kinda makes the words man and woman redundant. Makes both of them now just mean..human.

The circular logic tends to astound me too. Among those who claim a woman is something that is not an adult human female. They can never aswer, and 'whoever says they are a woman' is obviously totally useless as a decriptor.

I saw a flobalob today
Whats a flobalob?
Something that looks and acts like how some other fobalobs look/act
In what way?
Like a flobalob does
So what actualy i a flobalob?
A flobablob! Shut up bigot, you aren't getting it and are responsible for violence and hatred committed by the eegleberts against flobalobs.
Wait, whats an eeglebert?
Oh a person of the male sex.

Just nonsense.

Welcome to the cognitive dissonance that is built on sloganeering and lack of critical thought.

Sex is not a spectrum. On Twitter I have seen it explained quite well, and maybe by IntersexFacts who is consistently correcting people. Sex is not a spectrum however, within the definition of male or female is a spectrum of differences is the gist of it.

However, there is much excitement around people who theorise that because of those differences in sex development, that sex is a spectrum and it feeds into the ideology. I have also seen that studies then showed that a vast majority of people who are transgender do not have any differences in sex development so it completely invalidates the theories anyway.... then they come onto brains.

Massive eye roll. And yes.... brain activity is effected by synthetic hormones , of course it is....

On Twitter I have seen it explained quite well, and maybe by IntersexFacts who is consistently correcting people.

And seems to be generally abused, ignored or blocked by those who wish to keep spreading misinformation about there being hundreds of thousands of true hermaphrodites in the human population and such.

And seems to be generally abused, ignored or blocked by those who wish to keep spreading misinformation This is also true. Blocked most often for daring to offer up an informed discussion or a request to stop using people with DSDs as a 'gotcha'. Between IntersexFacts, and some of the DSD community and Dr Emma Hilton, I continue to learn a great deal from their constant dialogue with people spreading misinformation.

Those that position themselves as expert scientists get very aggressive when their arguments are pointed out to be based on theories that have not stood up to robust debate.

Often with the disclaimer: The science has just not been found to explain it yet...... my eyes roll at that.

This is how they are valid - TWATW, TMATM, NBPANBP, Women are Women, Men are Men.
It isn't over complicated.

"transwomen are women, transmen are men, and nonbinaries are valid." So... transwomen and transmen are NOT valid?

If your “identity” does not correspond to reality, how can it be valid?

BlackForestCake

Exactly, bending the norms of society and biological fact to fit in with the wants of a tiny minority is not the way forward, and will result in kickback if the wants turn to demands.

The whole 'sex is a spectrum' thing is just the latest batshit thing from a group of people who need to keep making up bullshit to keep an original lie (that men can become women) going. A bit like in The Ickabog where lie upon lie keeps having to be told to keep plugging the holes!

I know someone who was born with 11 toes, and someone else who was born with a finger missing. This does not mean that the number of fingers and toes that a human is classified as having is 'variable'. Its 10.

Humans are classified as a 'bipedal species' ie they walk on two legs. Some people are born with only one leg. Does this mean that they are not human? Or that humans are not a bipedal species? No, of course it doesn't. They are an exception to the rule.

People with DSDs do not 'prove' that sex isn't binary. In fact they are the exception that proves that sex is binary. There is no 'third sex'. There is no 'third gamete'. The vast vast majority of people with DSDs are clearly male or female anyway. I think a lot of people don't understand what 'intersex' actually means, and think that all intersex people have both male and female sex organs or something!

There are studies out there demonstrating that you just have to repeat bullshit often enough for people to believe it. And that is all there is to this statement and its neverending repetition. No point arguing its content. If anything, we should come up with a counter phrase and repeat it ad nauseam.