@picklemewalnuts "In saying you are a woman, you are saying you are the same as me."
Yes. Otherwise you end up with the impossibility that nobody can be a woman. After all, are you the same as my mother? Her mother? My friend, a mother of 3 children? My friend who chose not to have children? My friend who cannot have children? Are you the same as all of those people simultaneously, or are you different from them?
By your argument nobody is the same as any other person, and therefore nobody can be a woman. Or you do not mean that? In which case we are the same. Just women.
"When an archaeologist digs me up- no doubt."
I studied archaeology at university (one of the subjects I studied). There are doubts given to identification of sex based on skeletal remians. Something that can readily be seen in recent examples.
"I am a woman, nothing I do can ever change that. No hormones, no surgery. I am a woman whether I like it or not, with all the added mess, responsibility and hassle that goes with it, that I can't change. I am a woman."
Likewise. Hormones and surgery don't change that I am a woman. Hormones and surgery do not make me any more or any less of a woman than you. Just simply a woman.
But as I said, that you struggle with that is not my problem to solve or deal with. That is yours. I do not deny that you are a woman. I merely point out that respect is a two-way street. If you cannot respect the autonomy of another when she posts saying that she is a woman then why should she afford you that respect? And yet, I do.
@ArabellaScott I am a woman.That's remarkably simple. And as multiple posters on here are very quick to point out, by dictionary definiton I must also be an Adult Human Female. That's the problem with argumentum ad dictionarium. It's called a fallacy for a reason.
"I don't think you've understood what 'boundaries' mean, there. You are defining yourself, using words of your choice. That's fine."
Then by your own admission I do understand boundaries. That my boundaries include the right to state who I am and not have that claim discarded and who I am not forced upon me. I am not a man. To try and force that claim upon me is a violation of my boundaries.
@RedToothBrush "Asserting your boundaries at the expense of women rather than understanding that that can not work"
So what boundaries of yours have I asserted that in any way violates yours? I have merely stated who I am. Is my existence an affront to you? No? Then my existence as a woman cannot possibly come at the expense of your boundaries.
Have I asserted my boundaries by pointing out you don't get to override my autonomy, you don't get to try to force your claim I am not a woman on me? Yes. That is not a violation of your boundaries in any sense. It is merely pointing out that your belief (wrong as it is) about who I am is not yours to force on me. It is not for you to define who I am and demand that I must accept it.
"Rights which clash include a need to compromise."
And yet I have not seen what rights these are that clash? Privacy and dignity? Are these not rights that all enjoy? Access to services? Likewise. I am not the one who has ever demanded that somebody must not be allowed to access a woman's service for no other reason than I've decided on my tod that they aren't allowed to be a woman and therefore I'm going to force my belief onto them. I've never sought to violate another's autonomy like that.
@sanluca "JazSakuraRose, where in your mind do the biological differences between men and women go?"
Where do the biological differences between individuals go? Where do the biological differences between groups of people go? At what point do you draw the line? At what point do you realise that trying to treat people as a monolithic block really doesn't workout that well, especially for women, under the medical system?
An example. When you see your doctor or if you have treatment do you wish it to be your medical notes and history that is used, or merely just some random woman's? Or, even worse, just a flattened out stereotype of what a woman should suffer from, and what she can't suffer from? We used to have exactly that kind of medical system. In many ways we still do. Just ask women from ethnic minority backgrounds just how often their medical professionals treat them not as individuals, but instead through the lens of racist sterotyping.
Where do the differences go? In my experience, in the experience of very many women, they go poorly. Ill-judged. And lead to things that should not be cheered at all.
"But there is still two sex classes, male and female."
That is a belief that you wish to have. But as we have seen with the growth of legal recognition of non-binary people it simply isn't true.
@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown "You're not asserting your boundaries. You are overriding ours."
How? Precisely please. Vague assertions of, 'you are overriding ours', when you provide no boundary of yours that has been overridden by the simple fact of my existence kind of proves my point. That you are unhappy that I have the temerity to be me. To not back down to the beliefs of others who think they have the right to demand that I can only be who they say I am.
"Women are telling you that we want to speak for ourselves. You are overriding that by insisting that we do not need our own voice."
And where have I said that?
"I find it particularly ironic that you say you'll speak for us, even as you ignore and refute everything we're saying."
Again, where have I said that? In my post I speak for myself. That is clear.
@Barracker "Hi Jaz. I'm female; the opposite *sex to you."
See, there you go doing the very thing I clearly said, "No" to. It is not for you to force your misguided belief on who you demand I must be onto me. By trying to claim that I'm the opposite sex to you that is exactly what you have done. And as you are no doubt aware, 'No' is not the beginning of a negotion or bargaining. It is a statement in its own right. If you wish to maintain your misguided belief that I am the opposite sex to you then knock yourself out. But it has nothing to do with who I am. It has nothing to do with the simple fact that I am a woman, that is my sex.
@SophocIestheFox Are trying to argue that if all women are together then no woman can offer special insight, or that women can't offer special insight at all? I disagree entirely. All women are unique and individual. All have an insight to offer that is unique to themselves, yourself and myself included.
@CaraDuneRedux "Get women thinking seriously about the difference between adjective + noun (brown horse) and compound noun (seahorse)."
So you are arguing that women should only be referred to by the use of compound nouns? A curious argument. Or you could accept that respect goes both ways? If you wish to refer to one group of women like myself by a compound noun then that applies to all groups of women. If you insist on transwomen then by definiton are you not a nottranswoman in relation to me? Or are you, like myself, just the plain, simple word 'woman'? (I'd add I'd prefer to not reference people who aren't trans using a negative, but Mumsnet for some strange reason has decided it doesn't like the correct term used both in science and in daily life—as evidenced by it being in the dictionaries—for people who aren't trans and I do try to stay in the rules laid out by my host).
@allHelmetbymidnight ^"I don't think Jaz will return. They've just posted their ranty stream of nonsense onto twitter to get the likes.
Call yourself what you like, Jaz. We know what you are. ;)"^
Do you? My word. If you would indulge me, where did we meet? Dying to know. Or is it that you don't know me?
@OldCrone ^"But when a male-born person"
And there's that torturous use of language again. How many people are born to males? I know there have been some (I do, after all, accept the autonomy of trans men who have said that they are male and have given birth), but I do not believe there to be so many as to warrant such a claim as follows. Nor does the existence of a relative handful of people born to trans men redefine, 'woman'. Not even my existence does that. Trans people have always been around. Women like myself, under the aegis of our own autonomy, have always been women. That you may be unaware of that does not change the meaning of the word, 'woman', only (possibly) your knowledge of the meaning of that word.
"A woman is an adult female human."
And as I have already clearly set out in my post, I am a woman and it is not for you to demand that i cannot be. So according to your own statement that means I must be an adult human female.
@yaboo "Yes, it's frightening. It's frightening to be forced to deny reality."
Welcome to almost the whole of my life. Because that is my life. People trying to force me to deny the simple reality that I am a woman. It was that force, that violation of my own autonomy, that forced me to hide who I was for the longest time. Even now—now that I no longer hide—I still face people who seek to force me to deny a simple reality that people like myself are women.
"that understanding basic human reproduction is somehow flawed and political and fascistic."
Curiously enough, people not knowing how basic human reproduction doesn't work hasn't stopped pregnancies occuring. In fact, it does tend to be the other way round. The more knowledge one has the better one is informed to make choices about contraception, etc. Should we not aim for a totally inclusive education on such things? Should we not adopt the most inclusive ways possible to include everybody, be they women, or men, or non-binary people? Should we not teach others that different people can have different genital configurations and that it is not the existence or lack of a bulge down below that makes a man a man? Or should we teach others that it's the packet down below that makes a man a man? That if you shouldn't have one then you can't be a man, or if it's smaller than others then you are less of a man? Of course not. And so reducing people to their genitals to do nothing more than try to claim that some women aren't women plays into the worst aspects of patriarchal standards and toxic masculinity.
"Sex isn't an 'option'."
No, it isn't an option for me. That's why, no matter how hard I tried to be a man I never was. It's why, no matter how hard other people try to force me to be a man or male I never will be.
@BoreOfWhabylon "It appears that actual biology makes a difference when assessing COVID Risk though"
Oestrogen levels. That's the main difference so far. Rather successful trials using oestrogen supplements on men who aren't trans in regards to Covid. Of course, the subsequent dysphoria was apparently rather appalling. I know how that feels.
@JellySlice "If you you want to donate a kidney or other tissue, it's not enough to say "I'm compatible because I want to be, I'm compatible because I love them, I'm compatible because I say I am." No, you have to prove it with tissue-typing."
But I am not donating a kidney, nor am I kidney. And as kidneys aren't sentient beings your analogy rather falls apart.
@Flapjak I rather feel you entirely missed the point of my post. It is not for you to demand or claim that I am not a woman. That does not lie within your power. It doesn't lie within anybody elses power apart from my own. And incidentally, yes, I will be filling in the census as 'female'.
@happydappy2 ^"If only men can be transwomen"
And there your argument falls apart, happydappy2woman. I am not a man. Nor am I that weird compond noun you've used. I'm just a woman. Simple as.
@EmpressWitchDoesntBurn "I think Jaz should take the shortwomen gaywomen brownhairedwomen thing to AIBU. It would be well received, I’m sure."
Indeed. Doing so would rather neatly prove my point, would it not? That it simply isn't acceptable to refer to any woman in such a manner, including women like me. We are all just women.
@AbsintheFriends "Also frightening that any woman saying 'I am a man' doesn't command a fraction of the power and entitlement that oozes from Jaz's post."
What "entitlement" is that, Absinthe? I have only stated that it does not lie in your power, or anybody else's, to demand that I can only be what you demand I must be. But that is as equally true for men who are trans, and non-binary people as it is for women like me who are trans. So what "entitlement" is there that you claim exists?
"and yet the law is allowed to do exactly that when the person is a woman asserting that they are a man."
A legal obscenity I've spent years fighting to remove. Curiously enough reforming the GRA would have achieved exactly that. Remind me again which group of people it was who fought to keep that legal obscenity in place?
@Justhadathought "Being female and in a female body is just a fact."
Yes? And? It is a fact of many people. See above as to the answer I'll be giving on the census. And my body is exactly that. My body.