Transinclusive feminists, please help me understand.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Genuine question. I recognise that some men suffer from gender dysphoria or truly believe they were meant to be women, and some want to live out their fantasies. So I understand why they want access to women’s single-sex spaces and facilities, to validate themselves.

I understand why they want language and culture changed to include them in the category of women.

Some men will take advantage for personal gain (eg taking ‘women’s officer’ roles or sports prizes), or to harass women and girls in intimate spaces eg toilets, or to be transferred from a male to a female prison. Women and girls lose out, obviously, with no corresponding gains to compensate.

I can understand that women who aren’t feminists may not be concerned about the effects on women and girls.

But how does a feminist reconcile her feminism — centring women’s rights and needs, including the right to privacy and safety —with supporting transwomen’s actions that necessarily impinge on these?

This is a genuine question, as I wonder if I’m missing or misunderstanding something.

John Ozimek (now Jane Fae) on women, feminists and victims of pornographers www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3374614-John-Ozimek-now-Jane-Fae-on-women-feminists-and-victims-of-pornographers

Well that's a bit depressing, inserting Fae into a conversation.

I'd love to know what the WI actually say when they "celebrate being a woman". It must be impossible for them to come up with anything that isn't a) a crude gender stereotype that transwomen can easily take part in to feel womanly like "this is how much women love knitting!" or b) true equally of humans of both sexes so not really about being a woman at all!

Sorry.

Shall we talk about femininity?

interested to know if the WI welcome transmen

So as Connie introduced WI to the thread the question for Connie is how does the WI centre women’s rights and needs, including the right to privacy and safety with supporting transwomen’s actions that necessarily impinge on these?

thinkingaboutLangCleg I don't know.

There was a time way back in the '90s when I thought feminism should take trans women under its wing.

But I don't think that now, quite the opposite, because of how gender ideology and 'trans rights' ie men's rights has played out.

I've asked this question many times, and always have had a response that asks us all to deny reality, which isn't a goer as far as I can see, personally, politically, legally or in any other sphere.

WI, breaking their own rules?

[quote JoodyBlue]@tinofshortbread What is a woman? The answer to that question is at the heart of all of these conversations.[/quote]
Yeah, I'd agree, that question is at the heart of it.

I think "a woman" is a person who has the gender of woman imposed on them by others, sometimes this is through deliberate encouragement, sometimes resentfully.

I think gender isnt something that someone "has" but a way that person A interprets person B, according to their particular cultural/historical norms.

As De Bouvoir said "women are made, not born" - society forces female children into becoming women and society forces them to stay women, praises them when they conform to the womanly idea of that time and culture - which is always the role that men most need women to play at the time. So when entertainment is a priority, women should be sexy and fun, when population growth is a priority, women should be nurturing and homely.

"one single thing which is a women's rights issue under the theory that women are a group defined by gender identity rather than sex?"

• street harassment
• sexual violence
• job discrimination (some gender-based, some sex based)
• general sexism

You must have seen the viral post about a bloke who accidentaly took over his colleagues inbox and discovered how much harder it was for her to deal with annoying clients, who then became docile once he used his own name rather than hers.

Thats not sex-based, thats gender.

I've noticed recently that some feminists have begun to interpret and use the word woman separately to sex.

So the word woman itself is a gendered title encompassing a fairly vaguely defined group of people.

And your sex is biological.

Except that the majority of the population uses and knows the word woman to be linked to the female sex.

Safeguarding rules use the words woman as xx. Laws do too. Hence safeguarding loopholes.

It's gaslighting.

Thats not sex-based, thats gender.

The question is gender identity not gender.

Tin, yes that's called gender stereotypes. And sexism. Gender based discrimination.

But I don't see many TW in low paid traditionally female job roles. And I doubt they'd get or accept a pay cut either.

And women do not like being forced to use pronouns on their emails as suddenly a neutral Dr Robinson is easily identified as a woman.

A poster recently described being told to use a more feminine name, hers was too gender neutral/masculine apparently.

But do we really need to enter into the sissyfication thing?

I think the point is that these gender norms are imposed on women because of their sex.

So when entertainment is a priority, women should be sexy and fun, when population growth is a priority, women should be nurturing and homely

Why do they have to be nurturing and homely? Because they are the class that gestates.

@tinofshortbread thanks for replying. But on what basis does a person have

"the gender of woman imposed on them by others" ?

And if that person refuses the gender role, is that person no longer a woman?

I have read De Beauvoir too. I don't think she was arguing that woman was only social construct and expectation and role. She laments the imposition of role for sure, but I don't interpret that she denied the materiality of the "second sex".

I think "a woman" is a person who has the gender of woman imposed on them by others, sometimes this is through deliberate encouragement, sometimes resentfully.

Woman: Adult human female. Simple. Gender of woman?? "Woman" is not a gender, it is biological. Woman and female are our words.

Also not sure why I need to study history re the 80s :D

When trans-inclusive feminists imagine a trans woman they imagine the most well-passing trans woman who has had all the surgeries. Someone “indistinguishable” from women. Or they imagine someone who, if they had only been allowed to transition as a child, would be such, but tragically cannot because they have been “poisoned” by testosterone and are therefore stuck in the middle. They pity these non passing trans women. They also have been convinced that well it doesn’t really matter if they have a penis, as long as they pass, whose business is it anyway what genitals someone has? Also many of them are young and have little experience with either trans women or with the biological reality of being female (childbirth and parenthood discrimination, default “support spouse” gender roles, etc). If they have experienced misogyny it’s the kind based on male sexual entitlement which unfortunately trans women (and gay and trans men) also experience. If they have competed in sports it has likely only been against other women, so physical differences between men and women might seem small.

In short they believe that trans women are closer to women than they are to men.

Gender is imposed, yes, through pink toy ironing boards and a lack of stem toys for example, but doesn't make you a woman. You are one. Or not.

Gender roles are imposed on women by society due to their sex and the sexual ability to reproduce.

This is a purely a semantic and sexist argument about the word woman.

Laws are based on defining words. Safeguarding is too.

This is what De Beauvoir was talking about. How gender evolved to keep women in a reproductive role as a commodity:

reneejg.net/2017/02/a-call-to-feminists-to-remember-the-history-and-sex-based-nature-of-womens-oppression/

(It's quite a hard read at times.)

I agree with the PP “Gender” is socially imposed, based on perceived sex. This is the traditional meaning of gender aka “the social expectations for behavior”

Trans men experience female sex stereotypes (“Gender”) until they pass (and then only partly, to those who do not know they are female).

Trans women experience male sex stereotypes (“gender”) until they pass (and only partly).

This explains why the desire to pass is so strong. Trans people want to experience life with the set of expectations imposed upon the opposite sex.

There is way too much confusion about this term, we should probably just throw i out to be honest.

'Determining what female is. Feminine behaviour. What a female should look like, as if femininity is a natural occurence only in one sex, what body parts one has to have to be regarded as female.'

This treatment of physical reality as the same as socially imposed gender norms is very strange.

I don't understand it at all.

Men and women can both have long hair, wear makeup, wear dresses. The fact this is considered usual for one and not the other is sex role/ previously known as gender.

Men can't have babies. Nothing to do with social role. Totally different.

I've come across this idea that GC feminists are wed to gender role. Stereotypes. Hair and dresses. Femininity.

Where the fuck anyone gets that idea is ??? as far as I'm concerned.

Thats not sex-based, thats gender.

But where do you think gender comes from? it is a way of constraining one sex (the reproductive sex) and oppressing them. Gender roles are related to sex.

That doesn't mean they are caused by sex - that is the feminist point.

Trans women experience male sex stereotypes (“gender”) until they pass (and only partly)

And furthermore, the harassment & violence which transwomen experience - perpetrated by men - is because men know transwomen are men (and no man has lost his job for saying that AFAIK, unlike a number of women) - and they visit violence on transwomen for not conforming to masculine gender stererotypes.

Male violence against transwomen is usually homophobic and masculinist.

It's not the same as male violence against women.