Why aren't transactivists gender-critical?

[oxcat1]

Please go easy on me if this is a stupid question.

If gender is simply the socially constructed expectations of how people should behave and dress, why isn't the trans movement gender critical? Surely to break down these societal expectations is in their interests (just as it is in the interest of women, feminists argue)?

Instead, the trans movement seeks to enshrine in law the very structure that makes living their own lives as they wish, free from constraints of societal expectations, so very difficult.

Why is that? Or have I totally misunderstood?

@NiceGerbil

And when it comes to who is doing the belittling, verbal abuse, physical abuse.

It's men isn't it.

So why are women who disagree seen as the most serious enemy?

This is just what I don't understand at all. Why the hatred towards women when it is men making Transwomen feel unsafe and threatening violence?

Anyway in the main my point is that menstruation has a host of stuff around it much of which is not good. So referring to human people who experience this. As menstruators. Defining them by that very thing. Is shitty tbh. For some girls the commencement of periods means major negative serious consequences. It's not a neutral term.

I think it’s very difficult to talk sensibly about this in the abstract. If you give me an example of a sentence to do with services, education, products or healthcare in relation to periods which uses the terms ‘woman’ and/or ‘girl’ I can tell you if I think the wording should be changed to make it more inclusive (in particular, of people who have periods but don’t identify as a woman/girl) and if so how.

I note that most charities when trying to raise funds around this talk about girls. Usually with pictures of sad children overseas. To pull the heart strings. It could be your daughter. How does please help menstruators sound?

It’s interesting, I’ve seen those adverts and thought about this. Many of them are to do with a range of issues affecting girls in certain parts of the world - access to education and birth control, prevalence of forced marriage - so it obviously wouldn’t make sense to refer to the people you’re seeking to help purely in terms of menstruation. Also, the advert is being addressed to an entirely different group of people from the people it’s talking about - so unless the girls in whatever part of the world it is have been consulted and objected to being referred to as girls, or unless there’s reason to believe significant numbers of them don’t identify in that way, I can’t see any reason to object to the language.

The problem with eg educational materials or product information that is aimed at anyone who has periods but refers specifically to women and girls, is that a person to whom it is addressed but who doesn’t identify in that way may feel hurt and excluded by it. I know a lot of people here are pretty scornful about whether we need to care much about hurt feelings, but I think it can have a big effect over time, particularly when the exclusionary language is encountered many times a day, every day.

Then you are wrong, no two ways about it, no middle ground, just wrong.

Ok, well I guess that’s told me then

Do you actually realise what you’re saying? You’re saying if a man does good enough make up job then he can access women at their most vulnerable. How many times do you people have to be told, women are not support humans for men. I’m sick of this shit, no compromise, no middle ground, just stop it and leave us alone! woman is not a costume, it is not something you can opt in or out of.

All very laudable Helen8220, but when you support an organisation says men are lesbians, it's all incoherent.

Why do we need one universal definition of ‘lesbian’ that everyone agrees on? A cis gender woman who considers herself a lesbian might be attracted only to other cis gender women, or also sometimes to trans men, or also sometimes to trans women. A cis gender woman who’s attracted only to cis gender women might reject the term lesbian and instead regard herself as a gay woman. A trans woman who is attracted to cis gender and trans women may equally consider herself a lesbian. Provided that the way a person regards their own sexuality bears some reasonable resemblance to the way terms are communally used and understood, whose business is it to tell them they’re wrong in how they identify?

I entirely agree that I’m not a support human for men (whatever that might mean).

‘No compromise’ is not a stance that’s going to get any of us anywhere, I’m afraid.

Helen, I think you know exactly what a support person means and I think you must have very little empathy for women, I really don’t see why women should compromise, men want to enter our same sex spaces and we say no, and we keep saying no.

Why do we need one universal definition of ‘lesbian’ that everyone agrees on?

Because that's how words work.

There are lots of other words that can be used for females who are not exclusively attracted to females.

Why do we need one universal definition of ‘lesbian’ that everyone agrees on?

The world lesbian has been taken. It means a woman who is same-sex attracted.

A woman who is attracted to a transwoman is heterosexual, or bisexual. If you want to find another word, that incorporates the trans aspect, go ahead. It's not lesbian.

Lesbian is taken. It's not a word, or a concept that is designed to validate the male sex.

And as a sexual orientation, it is protected by law.

@NiceGerbil

How many transwomen, having grown up male, really understand how women are treated?

I have seen a fair bit of stuff about poor treatment by the public etc that sounds like day to day normality tbh.

Stuff like being verbally abused, mocked. Feeling vulnerable, being threatened, being attacked.

I'll never forget the plea for money to get transwomen cabs home at night. It said, can you imagine what it feels like to feel unsafe walking home at night? Squillions of women said. Yes, of course! Are you serious?

I agree that many non-trans women (sorry, I realise I said ‘cis’ quite a lot in my previous post and many people here don’t like that term) are likely to share certain experiences that those who didn’t grow up female are much less likely to have experienced. But there is also a vast range of difference experiences among non-trans women.

A cis gender woman who considers herself a lesbian might be attracted only to other cis gender women, or also sometimes to trans men, or also sometimes to trans women.

No

They would be bi-sexual being both attracted to people of the male and female sex

It's still no.

Helen, I think you know exactly what a support person means and I think you must have very little empathy for women, I really don’t see why women should compromise, men want to enter our same sex spaces and we say no, and we keep saying no.

They’re not just your spaces, they’re also the spaces of people like me who feel very differently to you.

Ok, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of ‘lesbian’ then.

I agree that many non-trans women (sorry, I realise I said ‘cis’ quite a lot in my previous post and many people here don’t like that term)

Not just "don't like" it. Don't identify with it or believe in the belief system it rests on. Please afford women who are not "cis" the courtesy you would to a trans person and refrain from labelling us in a way we reject, Helen. That would be civil.

Just women is fine. "Non trans" if you must, but it's a tautology if you're speaking about female people.

Ok, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of ‘lesbian’ then.

You can have whatever fringe definition for commonly understood words you like, Helen. You can call chairs tables, or whatever, obviously.

Not just "don't like" it. Don't identify with it or believe in the belief system it rests on. Please afford women who are not "cis" the courtesy you would to a trans person and refrain from labelling us in a way we reject, Helen. That would be civil.

Word.

I find the term 'cis' highly offensive. Actually.

You can have whatever fringe definition for commonly understood words you like, Helen. You can call chairs tables, or whatever, obviously

I’ll do a straw poll of the lesbians I know and get back to you on this.

The world lesbian has been taken. It means a woman who is same-sex attracted.

A woman who is attracted to a transwoman is heterosexual, or bisexual. If you want to find another word, that incorporates the trans aspect, go ahead. It's not lesbian.

Lesbian is taken. It's not a word, or a concept that is designed to validate the male sex.

And as a sexual orientation, it is protected by law.

This. Helen, being a legal expert, should understand this. The EA definition:

This section defines the protected characteristic of sexual orientation as being a person’s sexual orientation towards:
• people of the same sex as him or her (in other words the person is a gay man or a lesbian)
• people of the opposite sex from him or her (the person is heterosexual)
• people of both sexes (the person is bisexual).

It also explains that references to people sharing a sexual orientation mean that they are of the same sexual orientation.

@Helen8220

Ok, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of ‘lesbian’ then.

Given it's the law, and given you're a lawyer, that's a very odd stance to take. I wouldn't have thought that disagreement with the law is generally thought of as a good opening gambit in court.

‘Cis’ just means ‘not trans’, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll do a straw poll of the lesbians I know

Wouldn't really be a representative sample, would it? If I did one, it would come out very differently, I imagine.

@Helen8220

You can have whatever fringe definition for commonly understood words you like, Helen. You can call chairs tables, or whatever, obviously

I’ll do a straw poll of the lesbians I know and get back to you on this.

Well that's a pointless exercise, given they could all be males.

See how this works?

‘Cis’ just means ‘not trans’, as far as I’m concerned.

It's not a term I accept as a label for me as a woman who is not an FTM trans person. Courtesy, Helen. Acceptance without exception.

So in your world women’s spaces include men, which means some women (women who’ve been on the receiving end of violence from men, religious women, women who simply don’t want to undress in front of men) self select out of those spaces, whereas the men have two spaces to choose from. And you think that’s morally the right thing to do, do you?