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.

[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]
The fact that so many of these organisations preface the "TWAW" statement with "We believe ..." says it all really. Statements that are irrefutably true don't need that, because they're not matters of belief. And if something is a matter of belief, then it should be open to debate.

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

With you up to a point. I happen to think everyone's non-binary, because gender is a nebulous concept that shifts like unstable sands depending on where in the world you are, and when in the world you are. It's rooted in historically/geographically-specific discourses, whereas biological sex is immutable. In some senses, I can see why this makes some people who base their entire sense of selfhood around gender are so insecure. It's a rickety, unstable perpetually-changing concept on which to build an entire identity.

Oddly enough that's what feminists and queer theorists were arguing until very recently. The demands of one TRA I saw on Twitter - to read Judith Butler and 'educate yourself' - struck me as quite humorous. By their brand of reckoning both Saint Butler and Saint Foucault are rampant transphobes.

Well, I never ....

I happen to think everyone's non-binary

And therein lies the dissonance. I don't know anyone who would fall into the extremes of 'gender stereotypes' unless it is a superficial affectation and deliberate.

I agree that everyone is non binary. Possibly with the exception of, for example, the woman who had loads of surgeries to look like barbie and everything in her life is pink. Mind, I bet even she has some masculine preferences.

I just kind of find it easier to let them have their special label, and continue thinking they are special despite being exactly the same as everyone else. Non binary is..just a label that is cool really. Crack on. Only time it is concerning tbh is when they say non binary means women/girls should have mastectomies and such.

It depends if the dissenting voices have the majority opinion.

For example;

White is black/black is white

Nowadays that’s a no. Cultural appropriation and potentially racist. Thirty years ago it might have been considered a unifying statement. A statement that says we are all one, we see no colour.

Disable are able/ able are disabled. See again you could argue this. Many able people achieve less than a disabled person because they don’t have the drive to overcome the hurdles put infringing them.

So I think we need to get to the core of it Male have XX chromosomes, female XY. It’s hard to argue that with feelz.

• in front of them

We've been coming at it all wrong, I think. "Trans women are women" is surely meant metaphorically. We wouldn't die on the hill of "words are wind" or "you are my sunshine"
It's not meant literally when I say it, in any case.

I think the “is valid” tag is interesting because of the insight it might give us into how the speaker feels about disagreement.

The statement. “Non binary people are valid” is, we assume, to counter a whole load of people saying the opposite. Why does the speaker assume that people are saying non binary people aren’t valid? Because their identities rest wholly on what other people make of them. it’s not enough to perceive oneself a certain way, one has to ensure that everybody else has the same perception, or else invalidation and erasure ensues.

It must be exhausting. The locus of control shifts away from the self and onto other people. If you put your sense of self in the hands of others, you’re going to get let down ten times a day. Invalidation awaits at every turn. If you’re waiting for the world to approve and endorse you, you WILL be disappointed. This applies to everything, not just your gender identity!

Hence the rush to “validate”.

Also, I do think that people like this, who can’t brook disagreement, secretly themselves wish that people they disagree with would just fuck off and vanish, so a bit of projection?

I agree WRT primogeniture that the mantra is missing a bit:

'TWAW, TMAM except when they're not, non-binary people are valid'

I've found validity is another one of those things that people aren't allowed to question without being told they're hateful bigots invalidating people for even considering what it means. Like JKR and her daring to say the word 'woman'.

Also, isn't it odd that it's always TWAW first. Even with JKR, whose alleged thoughtcrime was against transmen, all her detractors started by saying 'TWAW'. I wonder why that could be.