What can we do?

[BrandineDelRoy]

I felt empowered tonight (by some wine) to challenge what Biden's done this week. I (in the US) approached two law school friends, one former boyfriend, my best friend from high school, and my sister in law on the trans women in sport issue.

None of them seemed to know what I was talking about. And when I tried to explain it, they didn't care because TW are so few.

How can we fight this?

It makes me sad that you continue to ignore the "how much" question, jj1968.

How much female collateral damage you are willing to accept for your sex-abolitionist utopia?

As for "There is no universal experience of womanhood, or manhood for that matter.", the corollary too that would be "there is no universal experience of being human". There is the fact of human diversity - but we are al human. There is the fact of female diversity - but females are all female. Being male or female is the basic dividing line among humans. It's at the heart of human reproduction, our continued existence as a species. It is more meaningful than race, class, religion.

But men have done a fantastic job over the aeons to divide and conquer.

I see jj is still making it all about gender and identity and not about biological sex. Sorry to burst your bubble, jj, but women always find common ground on being female. Doesn't matter if you have children, don't have children, are menopausal, whatever. Always shared experiences.
The same shared experiences I can imagine transgender people have that anyone not transgender doesn't share. Funny that women have no problem with these shared trans experiences and don't try to coopt them. Unlike transwomen with being female. I always feel there is an enormous envy with transwomen against women, as deep down they know women have what they can never have. Seeings some of the comments on social media from some, it drives them a bit insane.

jj for someone who spends so much time in FWR, it amuses me how culturally tone-deaf you are.

25% of women don't have children you say? Do you think not going through childbirth is as simple as typing "I don't want to have children" on a webforum?

The efforts required to avoid childbirth have shaped the passage of my life since puberty and will continue to do so until I hit menopause.

You are trying to segment the consequences of female biology into different categories in order to minimise it, thus proving the point about the negative impact of trans rights activists on women's rights.

I suspect a range of both biological and social forces, but trans people have existed in some form in all kinds of diverse societies from the Hijra in India, to the Travesti in South America, the Khatoey of Thailand, the two-spirit people of native american descent, - there are ample historical and cultural expressions of gender which go beyond the western patriarchal norms of men acting as men and women acting as women.

Are any of these 'trans people' female?

Are the male 'trans people' heterosexual?

I don't disagree that no-one born male can fully understand the discrimination women go through relating to child birth (and other physical aspects), but that experience is not univeral to all women - roughly around 25% of women in the UK never have children - some women can't, many don't want to - I don't think this makes them imperfect women

You’ve missed the point again. Women are discriminated against because they are of the sex that CAN have babies. So much so that asking about a candidate’s intention to have children was outlawed.

As I said earlier, this discrimination still happens irl - I have spoken to people who run businesses and have views on employing women of a certain age, not because they are horrid people but because the business impact can be huge.
Women CANNOT identify out of this discrimination- it is there and entirely linked to their sex.

You mention discrimination because of a female name but in that case, there might be an initial hesitation if someone thinks you’re female but then either the reality becomes obvious or the person involved has the option to reveal the truth. It isn’t right to present as a member of a discriminated against group and claim benefits and protections available to them - look at Benjamin Button (was it him? Identified as black to take up a conference place reserved for bjack people?).

Trans people can obviously experience discrimination on the grounds of Gender Reassignment which is also illegal but that is a very different situation.

Feminists from Firestone to Dworkin to Wittig to Butler have written widely about how under patriarchy a woman is a socially constructed role as well as a physical reality.

Links, please.

The whole point of this ceaseless trying to talk femalehood and female experience and female language and the concept of being a woman out of existence is by males, for males, solely so that they can dissolve it far enough to be able to claim it.

The answer is no.

You can define yourself how you like.

Leave me alone. To push your power to redefine me to your own better interests is based on your knowledge that you have that power over females, and your expectation of being a superior voice that females really ought to obey. It's fundamentally sexist, oppressive and unacceptable.

Actually no links required as CharleyParley has given an honest account of what you were trying to allude to.

Thanks anyway.

It's fundamentally sexist, oppressive and unacceptable.

Hear, fucking hear!

there are ample historical and cultural expressions of gender which go beyond the western patriarchal norms of men acting as men and women acting as women.

You really are missing the point here jj.

There is an enormous difference between people being gender non-conforming and people declaring that because they don't conform to gender norms therefore they are the opposite sex.

Surely you must understand that after all the time you've spent on here.

as a childless woman I am beyond fed up with TRA weaponising my childless status as some kind of gotcha to suggest Im not like other woman

I cant have children because after ectopic pregnancies - my biological female equipment doesnt work as it should. My ability to not get pregnant has dominated a fair chunk of my life and now Im menopausal my biology dominates that too. It is all about the biology.

I have everything in common with other women because of my biology whether they are mothers or not

You can define yourself how you like.

Leave me alone. To push your power to redefine me to your own better interests is based on your knowledge that you have that power over females, and your expectation of being a superior voice that females really ought to obey. It's fundamentally sexist, oppressive and unacceptable.

Absolutely on the nail!

Also worth noticing that often the historical and cultural expressions of gender for females going beyond patriarchal norms were to escape the the limits or dangers of being stuck in a biologically female body.

Not in the name of self expression.

And yet many of those women who pushed the boundaries of those limits placed on biologically female and changed the restrictions for other women are now being grabbed by the trans movement as examples of not being women who showed that people with female bodies can be and do anything - but that those women were actually men.

As if only men do exciting, interesting, challenging things, and any woman trying it stops being a woman.

Female becomes a kind of chuck it bucket, doesn't it? And females are supposed to believe this is a great, non sexist thing, that isn't rooted entirely in sex based thinking and doesn't harm them.

*Also worth noticing that often the historical and cultural expressions of gender for females going beyond patriarchal norms were to escape the the limits or dangers of being stuck in a biologically female body.

Not in the name of self expression.*

Like the female viking warriors that had to be transgender because otherwise why would they be warriors....

Thanks for all the responses- even those I don't agree with. Aside from the Gen X/Millennial split, I've been thinking about the people I asked and their siblings. I have one brother. I grew up seeing how we were treated differently by our parents, and how he became massively stronger than me at puberty. I'm wondering if having opposite sex siblings plays into people's opinions on this.

I'm wondering if having opposite sex siblings plays into people's opinions on this.

Certainly affected my understanding - my brother was excused from fellating-the-neighbour duties, my sister and I were not.

Probably so many factors involved that you'd be hard pushed to say anything concise about the impact of siblings, birth order etc though.

@Floisme

Whether you are able to have children or not, whether you want to have children or not, pregnancy - whether it's trying to achieve it or to avoid it - dominates womens' lives up until middle age. I have yet to meet a man who shows any understanding, or quite frankly any interest, in what it's like.

Dominates straight women's lives you mean? I don't think many lesbians feel their life is dominated by trying to avoid pregnancy.

And what people feel may dominate their lives may be very different. A young woman enduring sexual harassment from an arsehole boss may think that dominates her life. A single mum on benefits may feel the DWP's endless harassment dominates herself. Someone with a disability may feel the lack of accessibility dominates their life. And within that people form their own alliance and categorisations - a post menopausal childless disabled women on benefits may feel more affinity with a similar aged disabled trans woman on benefits than a surburban young mum with a couple of kids. A survival sex worker may feel she has more in common with a trans woman working alongside her in terms of the oppressions she faces and immediate needs than she has with a married professional. A trans man, who is attracted to women - and who most on here would say is a woman - may feel hugely alienated about some of the posts on this thread and feel she has more in common with a (non trans) man.

And that's really what I mean about people with a different view than the gender critical view not being stupid or brainwashed. Perhaps they just have different experiences. Perhaps due to those experiences they feel more kinship with trans women and recognise a shared struggle and so welcome them as women. I think the idea that trans inclusive people don't believe biological sex exists is a massive over-simplification of what most people feel - which is that there is more to our sexed roles in society than basic biology, that gender exists like it or not and can be life defining, that there are shared political struggles and experiences that form our identities, that some people have a sense of themselves that is different to their physical sex and that deserves recognition etc.

I don't think stripping down what are often quite complex and diverse understandings of sex and gender under patriarchy to whether people believe in 'basic biology' or not is very helpful - most people's position is far more nuanced and I think sometimes the political temptation to deny that so they can be ridiculed as absurd or anti-science overrides any desire for a meaningful dialogue and understanding of what people actually really think.

I don't think many lesbians feel their life is dominated by trying to avoid pregnancy.

Lesbian here.

Life is dominated by reproductive biology in the same way. All the gynae issues, the blood stained clothes and pains and issues, and as a lesbian I've done the same conception/miscarriage/fertility issues in having my children. I came to MN as a female seeking other females for help with miscarriage as it's the kind of thing you can only talk to another female about and where other females are the only people who really get it, that experience and understanding and support from other women sharing their own experience was much of why I stayed.

I'm disabled as well incidentally, and while that presents a lot of practical issues and restrictions and relationship with body issues, that TOO is all tied with having a female body, and actually happened as a direct result of pregnancy. So please don't, as someone born male, lecture me on my physical reality and lived experience.

Your complex and diverse understanding of gender and sex under patriarchy is divorced from the reality of basic biology. I don't have that luxury. Nor do I belong to a dominant sex class that expects to be indulged in that nuanced navel gazing and politics while handwaving away the reality of the sex class they perceive as something to redefine and rearrange to their own benefit. While totally ignoring anything that sex class has to say.

jj, you are embarrassingly predictable.

I sat there and thought, "bet you it'll be using lesbians as a gotcha next". And oh, look. Still, I'm won the bet againat myself and so I'm going to have an extra Oreo. I play for high stakes here.

I don't think stripping down what are often quite complex and diverse understandings of sex and gender under patriarchy to whether people believe in 'basic biology' or not is very helpful

Well it isn't to you, I can see that. It is to many female people who are screaming to try and make themselves heard about it's bloody well helpful to them, stop messing about with it.

most people's position is far more nuanced

That's highly debatable. Most female people's isn't. I'm not sure that's correct at all in terms of the average person on the street who have no idea this kind of stuff is even discussed.

and I think sometimes the political temptation to deny that so they can be ridiculed as absurd or anti-science overrides any desire for a meaningful dialogue and understanding of what people actually really think.

Meaningful dialogue being what? Where you tell females what you think and what they have to think and they say yes?

Female people keep repeatedly telling you what they think here and trying hard to have a conversation with you about it, because your approach does not work for them. Which makes it a hostile takeover that harms them. And they're hardly going to be enthused and welcoming about it on those terms.

I don't think many lesbians feel their life is dominated by trying to avoid pregnancy.

So you don't believe TWAW. Something we can agree on at last.

Sometimes people think they sound clever and learned when they say nothing of substance.

All humans are different. Humans have a variety of ideas about reality. It’s all terribly complex and nuanced.

jj if you're going to go to the trouble if singling out one of my posts you could at least have the courtesy to reference it in full.

That's highly debatable. Most female people's isn't. I'm not sure that's correct at all in terms of the average person on the street who have no idea this kind of stuff is even discussed.

To clarify I'm talking about the split between mostly second wave and third wave feminists on this issue, not the average person on the street (who may equally have a range of views).

Meaningful dialogue being what? Where you tell females what you think and what they have to think and they say yes?

I've added the caveat to almost all my posts on this thread that I am specifically not telling anyone how to think. I'm just making the point that people who think differently are not necessarily stupid or brainwashed.

I note you only consider oppression applies to the characteristics that apply to you but I'm sorry, if you don't think oppression can exist based on sexuality, gender identity, disability, or religion, then I don't really know what to say except you're simply wrong. It was illegal to be gay for many years, and by de facto virtually illegal to be trans - it still is in some parts of the world, to the point of being punishable by death, if thats not oppression then I dont really know what is.

Let's agree to disagree on our respective definitions of oppression. I'm going by one of the more common definitions, which posits that in addition to systematic abuse and injustice, a group must also be subject to exploitation for the discrimination they face to amount to oppression.

And there is no resource extraction other than on the basis of sex, race and class (and I probably should add religion to those three even though it's often class or race that dominates even when the oppressed group practices a different religion).

Let me add that if you read my comment again, I did not claim to have been oppressed on the basis of anything at all. I stated that I have been disadvantaged and discriminated against. And while I would have to carefully consider if what I have experienced because I am female amounts to oppression, I know that what I experienced on the basis of my nationality and immigration status (not race) and my parents socio-economic status (class, in a way, but it's complicated) was definitely not oppression.

That word is used far too freely in my view, which has devalued an important concept we need to be able to analyse, address and eventually remedy the worst human rights abuses in our time.

As I said, I'm perfectly happy for you to use the word differently from me. I would point out though that when males who identify as trans claim to be oppressed by females because of our "cis privilege", I don't just consider this a ridiculous claim, and I don't just stop taking seriously anyone who makes that claim, I think it's offensive, contemptuous and wholly ignorant of what it means to be female. Proof positive as it were that no male can ever be female because they cannot understand what it means to be female. Which they demonstrate with that ludicrous claim.