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?

No that's Travis Alabanza.

by your explanation of gender, it can only mean an internal belief based on nothing or anything, depending on the individual. Something that literally cannot be defined, examined, questioned. Do you agree with that summary?

No.

Genders' incredibly difficult and honestly I'm not going to write a novel about it, especially when I'm not getting paid and especially not with the crowd of Mumsnet dot com, but I will slim it down to 'it's a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'.

Well I'm drinking beer, and I'm a woman.

Watch out or they'll tell you to transition for being 'too masculine to be a woman, wouldn't you be better off just living as a transman and dressing as a woman sometimes'.

So I'm trying to understand here, do you just feel your body is wrong? Or is it something else? E.g. what is there meaningful that you can do as a man you can't do as a woman?

My body is my body, it can't be wrong or right, I can change external characteristics of it thanks to the wonders of modern medicine.

Everything I can do as a man was what I could do as a woman (besides legally entering some spaces, but that's not why I transitioned), I didn't transition because I 'wanted to do something as a man that I can't as a woman', I needed to be referred to as who I am, which is a man.

So gender can be defined as: Does this purple smell like the number four?

Barheim, just let me see if I’ve got this right - you believe that what makes someone a woman or a man is something entirely internal that only they themselves can identify. And you believe people should be permitted to access women’s or men’s single-sex spaces accordingly, based on this self-identified, self-declared, unverifiable something internal? Have I got that right?

Genders' incredibly difficult and honestly I'm not going to write a novel about it, especially when I'm not getting paid and especially not with the crowd of Mumsnet dot com, but I will slim it down to 'it's a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'.

Given that your beef here is with people who you believe are using "gender" wrongly, what is your definition of woman that involves neither sex nor sex stereotypes? What else is involved?

@Barheim

So I'm trying to understand here, do you just feel your body is wrong? Or is it something else? E.g. what is there meaningful that you can do as a man you can't do as a woman?

My body is my body, it can't be wrong or right, I can change external characteristics of it thanks to the wonders of modern medicine.

Everything I can do as a man was what I could do as a woman (besides legally entering some spaces, but that's not why I transitioned), I didn't transition because I 'wanted to do something as a man that I can't as a woman', I needed to be referred to as who I am, which is a man.

No, the external appearance - not "characteristics" - can be changed.

Human beings have been altering their appearances for thousands of years but they still remain the sex they were born as it is impossible for humans to change sex.

As for why not smashing stereotypes rather than enforcing them.

My personal view.

Men seem to have a very strict hierarchy and also strong ideas about masculinity which, whether actually strongly enforced or not, most seem to be very aware of.

Many men- I'd go as far as most- at some level see women not as whole people but as 'types'. 2D cookie cutter shapes.

Eg
Milf
Jail bait
Old dear
Angry feminist
Sexy
Slutty
Ballbreaker
Etc etc

Even 'nice' men easily revert to this thinking when it's a woman they don't know. It's really entrenched. There's also a real unhappiness when a woman of X type in their head does something that doesn't fit. They don't like that at all.

Haven’t RTFT.

Because of…

Need for validation

Appropriation of things that are set aside for natal women

Very low barriers to entry to be part of this particular ‘special club’

Keeps oneself in a job if one’s job is to lobby for this sort of thing

Some are invested in lifelong clinical treatment

Some have questionable interests in bodies that have not fully developed secondary sex characteristics - lack of ability to define anything suits them

A few are dysphoric

@MouseyTheVampireSlayer

I'm reminded of the adage. If you can't explain your position to a novice, then you probably don't understand what you're saying as well as you think you do.

Or it could be that the position is literally impossible to get across to anyone who looks at it critically?

No, the external appearance - not "characteristics" - can be changed.

External characteristics are external appearances.

Human beings have been altering their appearances for thousands of years but they still remain the sex they were born as it is impossible for humans to change sex.

I've already changed my sex in all manners that are important to me, however.

So from the hierarchy part you get the 'proper' men and then others. The not quite right men. The men- but- lesser. The non men.

What is a person if not quite a proper man? A non man- a woman. Women are- hair and legs and clothes and boobs and sexy/or not and compliant/ or not. There is a set of types, pick one.

@Barheim a genuine thank you for giving your cut down definition of gender. It is a better response than most give.

However, "it's a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you" doesn't hold much meaning when you analyse it. A self defined trait is the same as a belief you hold about yourself, surely. And "usually in association with the gender of people around you" is somewhat of a mystery! Perhaps you mean that your internal "self defined trait" is affected by your culture and your society? So you may have come to a belief in a different self-defined trait had you been born and raised in a very different society?

@Barheim

So I'm trying to understand here, do you just feel your body is wrong? Or is it something else? E.g. what is there meaningful that you can do as a man you can't do as a woman?

My body is my body, it can't be wrong or right, I can change external characteristics of it thanks to the wonders of modern medicine.

Everything I can do as a man was what I could do as a woman (besides legally entering some spaces, but that's not why I transitioned), I didn't transition because I 'wanted to do something as a man that I can't as a woman', I needed to be referred to as who I am, which is a man.

I would really like to understand Barheim. What is your understanding of 'being a man'?

Women have always been no more/ no less than what men say they are.

The idea that we could be more than that- not just non men (an idea that's been around forever) but a whole different independent group. Is just not in the thinking at all.

There also seems to be from quite a lot of things I've read a strong focus on boobs. And that's not a male preoccupation at all...!

@Barheim

by your explanation of gender, it can only mean an internal belief based on nothing or anything, depending on the individual. Something that literally cannot be defined, examined, questioned. Do you agree with that summary?

No.

Genders' incredibly difficult and honestly I'm not going to write a novel about it, especially when I'm not getting paid and especially not with the crowd of Mumsnet dot com, but I will slim it down to 'it's a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'.

Well I'm drinking beer, and I'm a woman.

Watch out or they'll tell you to transition for being 'too masculine to be a woman, wouldn't you be better off just living as a transman and dressing as a woman sometimes'.

Why should I consent to giving away women's sex based rights based on 'a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'?

It is impossible to draw parallels without coming out with ludicrous examples, but how is the self-defined encroachment on others sex-based spaces any different to me self-defining as the owner of the best house in town and moving in? It is entitled, delusional and outrageous. It is taking from others based on absolutely nothing but a self-defined entitlement.

Or it could be that the position is literally impossible to get across to anyone who looks at it critically?

Have you really?

Why do you assume that it's natural for people who are born with vaginas and wombs to be considered women, and that those who aren't are traumatized, deluded, running away from oppression or otherwise pressured to do so?

Why is it societally assumed that everyone with a penis must be a man, that those who don't fit this mold must be predatory and a threat of safety?

Why assume that trans people are trying to transition solely because they can't wear or do what they want when especially the formerly mentioned group would have no issues dressing 'as a man' (the current gender neutral) or doing 'masculine things' (as if anyone's really shocked by a woman who's a steak-snorting, bar fighting lumberjack or... whatever's masculine, don't know, don't care)?

Why should I consent to giving away women's sex based rights based on 'a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'?

Which sex-based rights have you not had for the past decades?

I also wonder if men are a lot more prone to note superficials.

I always talk about the big brother where there was a young man. After a few weeks he put his drag gear on. He looked pretty good- he was good looking.

Big hair, makeup, tiny dress, very high heels etc. The men were visibly uncomfortable. Seemed the cues- the hair tiny dress etc were telling them hot woman but they knew he was a man.

I found that really interesting. It was weird. I suppose with all the messages of what a het man should read as sexy woman, reinforced all the time. They couldn't get past it- it had been hard wired in.

So what is a woman? Her presentation. Is a massive part.

allBarheim
Why do you assume that it's natural for people who are born with vaginas and wombs to be considered women

Because women is the word for people born with vaginas and wombs.

Why do you assume that it's natural for people who are born with vaginas and wombs to be considered women

Because this (our biology) is the actual definition of a woman, in our GC opinion. You could say why are women not called cats, but that would be ridiculous, we're just not.

What is your understanding of 'being a man'?

Being a miserable little pile of secrets.

But really being trans doesn't make me a therapist or a pyschologist, armchair or not.

I know that since I'm recognized externally as who I perceive myself internally (which includes being a man and really, fuckall has changed beyond going 'hi I'm a dude' and transitioning) I'm finally no longer in constant struggle with myself, feeling like I'm playing a charade and living a lie to the point it was killing me.

"Why do you assume that it's natural for people who are born with vaginas and wombs to be considered women"

Because that's what the word "woman" means. An adult human who belongs to the sex class that creates large immobile gametes. That's all it means.

Yes.

Don't follow the question, sorry.

Because almost all biological men ie "men" have penises, and having a penis is pretty much a defining factor for being a man. Man. Adult human male. No-one assumes all trans women are predatory. Child protection does not rely on the assumption that everyone is a paedophile.

I don't assume that people are transing to wear opposite sex clothes. I'm assuming that for the vast majority they are wearing clothes associated with the opposite sex, which they are perfectly at liberty to do as far as I'm concerned, irrespective of their sex or their thoughts.

@Barheim

Why should I consent to giving away women's sex based rights based on 'a self-defined trait of oneself usually in association with the gender of people around you'?

Which sex-based rights have you not had for the past decades?

You didn't answer the question.