what does it mean "live as a woman"?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I gather that in order for a male person who believes themselves to be feminine they have to "live as their acquired gender" for 2 years in order to get a GRC.

Is there a definition of how women live? Because I don't think I qualify.

It's as much reality as the sea and the sky.

How loamphobic of you!

I'm paid less than my male colleagues,

All of them? Always? In every job?

I'm constantly talked over in meetings,

Sounds like some terrible meetings. If that happened to me I would not assume it's because I'm a woman, I would have a go at the meeting participants for being terrible at meetings. I go to 1,000s of meetings, talking over people is not the norm. I do it occasionally to cut off waffle when we are time limited, but that's it, when it's time consuming unconstructive waffle. Maybe we are on to something here...

it's baseline assumed I have a surface-only grasp on subjects under discussion.

Again, you seem to work with a bunch of morons. I am usually in meetings where everyone knows why each person is there and what they are going to contribute.

I'm expected to be the mediator;

So at the same time as being talked over and assumed to have no knowledge you are also mediating? These are some weird meetings.

to always be 'kind' and 'neat' and 'nice'.

Literally? So "neat"? How does that work? Do you get told if you're shoes are scuffed? Or is it the same as all of us, we feel self conscious if we have smeared half a sandwich down our front, male or female, pretty normal.

Every day is 'comment on your appearance' day;

Honestly, I've had five meetings today, no idea what anyone wore, haircuts, nothing, no one said anything about what I looked like, other than a really close friend one to one, who said I looked well but then he always does. He's a mate. I have not commented on someone's appearance at work for about, let me think, forever, I am not interested.

I can't recieve compliments without having to deflect.

Well I think most people politely deflect. It's called modesty. We all do it. Men and women. If anyone bothers to say anything.

None of those things are my life at work as a woman.

None of those things are my life at work as a woman. But every single one of them is a Disney stereotype of woman!

@CharlieParley

My growing mind experienced attempts to socialise me as male in childhood, which I fiercely rebelled against, and then attempts to socialise me as female, which I didn't.

Now this is interesting to me. I fiercely rebelled, too. For as long as I remember. I didn't realise just how successfully I was socialised as female anyway until I started learning more about male and female socialisation a few years ago and started critically examining my behaviour.

It's all nice and well to believe yourself to have resisted - I too believe I resisted - but I've come to understand that there is a limit to how successfully young children can resist socialisation, when that is a conditioning mechanism neither we nor most parents are conscious of.

I do not believe any child can resist being socialised in the way society decrees it, because that conditioning process does most of the work before we know enough to resist it. We can seek to overcome it, we can defy it. We cannot escape it in my view.

That view doesn't fit in with trans exceptionalism though.

I'm paid less than my male colleagues, I'm constantly talked over in meetings

I don't buy any of this. In part because you failed to listen to any women over several days on a thread recently about young girls on puberty blockers. You ignored every single post pointing out the cohort being referred to, despite people pointing out the pointing out! Over and over, to a very strange degree.

it's baseline assumed I have a surface-only grasp on subjects under discussion.

Well, considering the medical knowledge and legal on the thread yesterday far outstripped yours, and yet you still maintained your position, that's not really surprising.

I'm expected to be the mediator; to always be 'kind' and 'neat' and 'nice'. Every day is 'comment on your appearance' day; I can't recieve compliments without having to deflect.

Right...

And ButterflyHatched although I have asked twice, I'm not really expecting a coherent answer. What do you think causes gender dysphoria? What is the cause of it?

Not what it feels like, not how it manifests itself, not how it's treated, what causes it?

I'm expected to be the mediator

Is that your explanation for your early posts here about regulation of what feminists can say? You are a self appointed mediator?

@midgedude

I will answer that last question as a female who think she understands where butterfly is coming from

Being a woman is in reality more than just our biology

It's also how society chooses to interact with us based on its assumptions which are based on its assumptions on what biology we possess

This is important. If it was just biology without social things there is no reason we would get paid less or excluded from parliament

The discrimination we face is purely societal

We fight against this but it is there in every interaction we ever have

If society thinks you are biological female it treats you different on average

And that is an experience that in turn affects who you are , your behaviour is a reaction to that treatment

And your reaction isn't determined by your genital biology , so there is an aspect of being a woman that isn't determined by your biology directly. In that if you had male biology but suffered the treatment that women suffer , you would probably react the same way

So today girls may be discouraged from doing maths , boys encouraged

So many girls will give up maths even if they are good at it . You gave up maths not because of your biology but because of how your biology led others to treat you. Other girls may continue , with an additional streak of determination ... you need to be mentally stronger to succeed so you learn skills and resilience that the boys don't need to

If the situation suddenly became boys being discouraged, then many boys would give up

So the way society treats you shapes you as a person in a way that is actually independent of your sex and I think that is the aspects of womanhood that butterfly is holding to

Remember that butterfly by very transition has shown herself more susceptible to societal influence than others who resist

Going back to this, though: the difference in the way men and women are treated goes back to the first humans to develop agriculture. When a way to store wealth was developed, men wanted to know how to pass their wealth to their children, to accumulate greater wealth for the tribe. Women know the children they birth are theirs. Men soon learned that women had to be tightly controlled, otherwise they might end up having other men's children, and passing their money to those children.

Almost all sexism stems from this. All the focus on women as sex objects, as fuckable versus unfuckable, as bitter shrieking barren old harpies or as sultry cheating lying vixens, all to do with men's inability to determine paternity in babies. FGM, child marriage, poor female literacy, femicide, domestic violence, all go back to women's reproductive capability and men's desire to control it.

In today's society, in Britain, it is still the main factor. You might not get a job because women go off and have babies and the boss wants someone who he won't have to stump up maternity pay for.

It doesn't matter if you, yourself never want children. How you identify is irrelevant to the boss. You're in the group of humans who go off and have babies, and you get judged accordingly. Is that "purely societal" when it is based in biology?

Saying that a man can be a woman if he identifies with how society treats him when he dresses like a woman is the same thing as saying Rachel Dolezal is black because she identifies with how Americans treat her when they thought she was black. But she's not black. She never was, she just bought into the idea. She joined the NAACP. She could study what stereotypes black people are faced with and she could confirm to each one if she wanted, that shows a level of commitment but that still doesn't make her black.

On a less contentious note, you could get upgraded on your next scheduled flight. You could get lounge access and lie flat beds that would normally cost about the same as a decent second hand Focus with MOT. You might identify with being treated as if you are wealthy. You might really like it, it could feel thrilling and affirming, you might know all the right things to say, you might look like you fit right in. But ultimately whether you like your treatment or not is totally irrelevant. Unless you have money, you're not wealthy.

The postmodern idea of willing something into reality, of speaking it into reality, is just utter bollocks.

@Datun

And ButterflyHatched although I have asked twice, I'm not really expecting a coherent answer. What do you think causes gender dysphoria? What is the cause of it?

Not what it feels like, not how it manifests itself, not how it's treated, what causes it?

That's a tough one

It's probably sexism?

Fundamentallly you made an active choice to modify yourself in order to pass as a woman, it was not forced upon you by other people

We have no choice unless we wish to also use harmful medical approaches

I would rather that what you needed from transistion could be obtained without transistion

So getting away from "being a woman ", going to another level of detail , what made you think you were one or want to be one

I think a few of us here have said that most of the reasons behind our wanting to be male lie in disgust with puberty ( which seems to hit females a bit worse ) and the fact that we would rather not be treated like girls , a rejection of the whole concept of treating males snd females differently . And I think we can now as adults recognise the differences between wanting to be male and actually being male in any way

@AlfonsoTheDinosaur

More vague deflective waffle.

Trans women are one of the many types of women.

No. They are one of the many types of men.

Yes 100%. Transwomen are not a type of woman.

And ButterflyHatched although I have asked twice, I'm not really expecting a coherent answer. What do you think causes gender dysphoria? What is the cause of it?

Not what it feels like, not how it manifests itself, not how it's treated, what causes it?

I, too, would really like to hear the answer to this.

@ArabellaScott

And ButterflyHatched although I have asked twice, I'm not really expecting a coherent answer. What do you think causes gender dysphoria? What is the cause of it?

Not what it feels like, not how it manifests itself, not how it's treated, what causes it?

I, too, would really like to hear the answer to this.

I've heard rational answers from people in the medical field, in the psychiatric field, sexologists, and women who are trying to help children, but in terms of having an answer from a transwoman, you tend to get a load of old waffle.

in terms of having an answer from a transwoman, you tend to get a load of old waffle.

In light of the frankly baffling definition of womanhood I wouldn't hold out much hope of a clear answer to anything.

I always thought I was a woman because I was born female and am now an adult. But no, apparently I need to identify as a woman and perform as a woman, whatever the heck that means.

@somethinginoffensive

in terms of having an answer from a transwoman, you tend to get a load of old waffle.

In light of the frankly baffling definition of womanhood I wouldn't hold out much hope of a clear answer to anything.

I always thought I was a woman because I was born female and am now an adult. But no, apparently I need to identify as a woman and perform as a woman, whatever the heck that means.

Woman is the combination of factors that led us to exist in and interact with the world around us -as- women (performance), filtered through our own experiences of physically existing in bodies affected by properties we would define as female (embodiment), and coloured by the subjective personal awareness of ourselves as women (identity).

Just for those who missed it 😁

And for anyone who missed my post, such a definition means women with severe cognitive impairments aren't women.

No. I'm not having this. Take your disablism and shove off.

Ah, I had missed that. Thanks.

That just reads like bullshit to me, I'm sorry. A woman is a woman. A woman is a female human, that's it. Nothing else. It's not rocket science, it's not complex, it's not something that needs much explanation. Humans are male and female, and woman is the latter.

Some young women who have rediscovered what it is to be a woman. They have learned the hard way that changing your body doesn't really change your sex.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/detransitioners-on-twitter-part-1?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMzkzNzg4OCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDE2NTY1NzAsIl8iOiJKMWo5SiIsImlhdCI6MTYzMzM3NDQ4MiwiZXhwIjoxNjMzMzc4MDgyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNjczMDkiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.YuSR-hLrCRM_q7GO53B7jyS6sMSZ90VsBFdXRmwqdk8

Woman is the combination of factors that led us to exist in and interact with the world around us -as- women (performance), filtered through our own experiences of physically existing in bodies affected by properties we would define as female (embodiment), and coloured by the subjective personal awareness of ourselves as women (identity).

Well I exist in the world because my parents had sex. In case anyone is confused one of my parents is male. One is female.
Im not sure if my performance is female or not. I've not been paid less on account of being female. And my male colleagues didn't speak over me in meetings.
My experiences of existing in my (female) body... well a lot of them are down to being female. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, miscarriage, periods.
Not sure about the last bit. It's so waffly I'm not even sure what Butterfly is trying to say.

1. What is the cause of gender dysphoria? (Not what it feels like, not how it manifests or how it is treated... what causes it?)

I'd like to add to the list of questions for Butlerfly if I may...

1. Please define "transwoman". (I am a woman but not a transwoman, how do we differ?).

Something that isn't a circular definition at any point will be very much appreciated. Ta.

You obviously believe you have some amazing new insight that the women here have yet to be exposed to that will make us suddenly understand... go on then. Enlighten us.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

And for anyone who missed my post, such a definition means women with severe cognitive impairments aren't women.

No. I'm not having this. Take your disablism and shove off.

Indeed. It could also, apart from, er, just writing the word woman, mean 'man' 🤣

Or anything else, in fact.

Total jibber jabber.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

And for anyone who missed my post, such a definition means women with severe cognitive impairments aren't women.

No. I'm not having this. Take your disablism and shove off.

And babies with vaginas aren’t girls, presumably.

to always be 'kind' and 'neat' and 'nice'.

Ahh fuck!! That is me out then. I am not womaning well,

@Eucalyptustrees

I'm paid less than my male colleagues,

All of them? Always? In every job?

I'm constantly talked over in meetings,

Sounds like some terrible meetings. If that happened to me I would not assume it's because I'm a woman, I would have a go at the meeting participants for being terrible at meetings. I go to 1,000s of meetings, talking over people is not the norm. I do it occasionally to cut off waffle when we are time limited, but that's it, when it's time consuming unconstructive waffle. Maybe we are on to something here...

it's baseline assumed I have a surface-only grasp on subjects under discussion.

Again, you seem to work with a bunch of morons. I am usually in meetings where everyone knows why each person is there and what they are going to contribute.

I'm expected to be the mediator;

So at the same time as being talked over and assumed to have no knowledge you are also mediating? These are some weird meetings.

to always be 'kind' and 'neat' and 'nice'.

Literally? So "neat"? How does that work? Do you get told if you're shoes are scuffed? Or is it the same as all of us, we feel self conscious if we have smeared half a sandwich down our front, male or female, pretty normal.

Every day is 'comment on your appearance' day;

Honestly, I've had five meetings today, no idea what anyone wore, haircuts, nothing, no one said anything about what I looked like, other than a really close friend one to one, who said I looked well but then he always does. He's a mate. I have not commented on someone's appearance at work for about, let me think, forever, I am not interested.

I can't recieve compliments without having to deflect.

Well I think most people politely deflect. It's called modesty. We all do it. Men and women. If anyone bothers to say anything.

None of those things are my life at work as a woman.

Completely agree Eucalyptus

@CharlieParley

My growing mind experienced attempts to socialise me as male in childhood, which I fiercely rebelled against, and then attempts to socialise me as female, which I didn't.

Now this is interesting to me. I fiercely rebelled, too. For as long as I remember. I didn't realise just how successfully I was socialised as female anyway until I started learning more about male and female socialisation a few years ago and started critically examining my behaviour.

It's all nice and well to believe yourself to have resisted - I too believe I resisted - but I've come to understand that there is a limit to how successfully young children can resist socialisation, when that is a conditioning mechanism neither we nor most parents are conscious of.

I do not believe any child can resist being socialised in the way society decrees it, because that conditioning process does most of the work before we know enough to resist it. We can seek to overcome it, we can defy it. We cannot escape it in my view.

Couldn't agree more! Our minds form in response to their experiences, and even if later experiences challenge our learned behaviours, it's often a conscious effort to fight them. We all have different experiences.

At what age does maleness become irrevocably and inescapably encoded, in your opinion?